Negative Thinking: The Drug of Choice

You say that you are conscious of your unhappy feelings, but the truth is that you are identified with them and keep the process alive through compulsive thinking.
Eckhart Tolle The Power of Now page 211


The following are links to some videos I created this morning on the subject of being addicted to our negative thinking as many of us are. They were inspired by a conversation I had with my daughter the other day where she shared  her wonderful insight into her own addiction.  Whatever I said in response seemed to make sense to her, so I decided to share it here.

Enjoy

All is well.

Some people feel the rain;others just get wet.

-Roger Miller( I think:))

Grandiosity or Grandeur? What Will You Choose?

The grandiosity of the ego is its alternative to the grandeur of God.  Which will you choose?
ACIM Chapter 9: VIII:1:6-7

It is raining outside and it feels like spring.  With a head full of useless ego thoughts, I open the door and I feel the spring air on my face. I hear the melody of robin song everywhere.  My head clears if just for a moment. How, I absolutely love to feel and hear that life out there. It makes everything right. :).  I do want everything to be right but what is right? Ego tells me one thing and Spirit tells me another.

What is right for the Ego?

Ego tells me that I am separate and alone in a problem-filled world and I have to make the best of things with the little I got. It tells me it is "right" to  ensure I am "safe" by creating walls and defenses around myself.  I have to "attack" before I am attacked. It is right for me to put my energy into creating borders and weapons, and competing to achieve whatever I can from the scarce and limited offerings of this world of fear.  It tells me I  need to work hard to achieve success, relationships that fill in the holes of my being, recognition, material abundance, status, ownership and control of what is around me. I need to do in order to make right what is inherently wrong with me. It tells me it is right to prioritize the doing over being, because my being is faulty and broken.  It tells me not to waste my physical and mental energy on silly things like "robin song" when I should be, like any good Army Colonel, planning and actively participating in a strategy for winning or at least surviving the battles of tomorrow. It tells me to push forward with all my might...  to do, do,do until I can do no more.  No pain, no gain is ego's mantra.

 Not pretty is it?

What is right for Spirit?

Spirit on the other hand, tells me to stop and listen to the magic of life that is all around me and in me, to be still and to just know...all I need to know before I get lost in doing. It tells me to put down my weapons and my strategic plans.  It assures me I don't need them because there is nothing out there that can harm the Self I really am.   It tells me to stop clinging to things that will never fulfill me and turn inward to the light that will. It tells me to just be and let life be what it is. It is after all, a world of Love.Relax, is Its mantra.

Hmmm...which one  do you think I should listen to? Which will you choose?

Do nothing from selfish ambition, or conceit but in humility count others as more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only on your own interests, but also on the interests of others.
Philippians: 2:3-4

All is well.

Shining the Light On Ego Darkness

Failure to perceive light is to perceive darkness.
ACIM Lesson 91: 2:6

There is always light even when we perceive darkness.  Darkness doesn't remove light, it just hides it.  Light, however, when it  is seen,  removes darkness because darkness isn't real.

Huh?

When we are perceiving "problems" or finding ourselves in some dark place emotionally, mentally or physically...we need to remember that the light is still there.  We are just not seeing it.  We are actually choosing not to see it because we are agreeing with ego which tells us that darkness is all there is.  Darkness is weakness, a sense of helplessness, belief in limitation, doubt and illusion. Darkness is of ego.

We cannot see what is right in front of us sometimes because of it. We cannot see the solution, the miracle, or the Love and support. So we stumble around, getting more and more lost in this dark room of our own making when all we really  need to do is allow the light in.

Reach for the Switch

We need to stop listening to ego's nonsense about how "bad or wrong" things are and just be willing to turn on the light. When we are willing to see light, when we turn to the Source of Light and reach for the switch, miracles happen.  Strength will replace weakness; power will replace helplessness; unlimited potential will replace limitation; certainty will replace doubt;  and reality will replace illusion.  The light will shine the darkness away and we will see.  Just reach for the switch.

....your efforts, however meager, are fully supported by the strength of God and all His Thoughts.  It is from Them that your strength will come.
ACIM Lesson 91:10:1-2

Foundations for Inner Peace ( 2007) A Course in Miracles Combined Volume Third Edition. Mill Valley: Foundations for Inner Peace.

Recovery from Ego Addiction.

Undermining the ego's thought system must be perceived as painful, even though this is anything but true. Babies scream in rage if you take away a knife or scissors, although they may well harm themselves if you do not. In this sense you are still a baby.  You have no sense of real self-preservation, and are likely to decide that you need precisely what would hurt you most.
ACIM 4:II:5:1-4 

Sometimes I feel like I am running with a pair of scissors in my hand. :)


I don't know about you but this awakening process is a very lonely one at times.  There are few people around me who seem to get what I am all about now.  Heck, half the time I don't even get it lol.

It is all so strange and so new and it too often feels like I stand here alone with my shifting beliefs and "abnormal" ideas. Like a shy kid on the fist day of school, I find myself stepping back and away from others. I sometimes feel like a target for judgment and shunning because I no longer think like the crowd.  I am different.   The defenses that once protected me from the potential of negative opinion are gone.  My image, my title, my so called status, and my desire to conform...gone!   I feel as vulnerable as heck from the stripping away of all the familiar things ego provided for so long, the things I thought were me. Who am I now?  What do people think of me now?  What do I want them to know? Where do I go from here?

Getting Clean and Clear

 I am like a recovering addict getting clean for the first time and taking the first  painful steps to "clear." I am red and I am raw.  I need support.  Yet, where are the support groups for this?  There are no Ego Watcher's groups set up to help us shed the extra pounds of sickening ego from our lives. There are no 12 Step Ego Anonymous groups though maybe there should be.  There is no sponsor I can call up when I feel myself slipping back into ego ways. 

Though there are so many teachers in the words I read, there is not one person standing before me that I can actually see and touch  who knows this path well because they have been there that I can go to. There is no experienced "body"  guiding me and pointing me in the right direction. It feels like I  am doing it alone and I am not sure what I am doing, especially now as I realize I know nothing!!! Some traditions state that a Guru or teacher is a requirement.  What happens if you are already knee deep in and you don't have one? Will I sink?

The more I "seem" to lose from ego's world the more raw and exposed I feel, and the more vulnerable I feel, the more likely I am to turn to old familiar patterns of coping...and it sucks to slip.  Not only do I feel guilt and shame when I do but I also feel doubt . "Am I ever going to get this?" I question. "Why am I even trying?" Not only that, the old ego comfort tricks don't even work for me anymore. They do not bring comfort or anything akin to a high.  They only make me sick. 

Rehab

Man, I need some type of rehab...seriously. I am afraid though, if there was rehab facility to go to  for this, I may  never want to come out into the real world again. I don't know how to live here anymore.  I don't quite know how to relate to people without my ego getting all inflamed again. Part of me wants to stay away from people all together.  I don't want to explain myself, rationalize why I am here, get lost in the "meaningless" again . I don't want to deal with judgment of any kind when I feel this vulnerable. Is this why people join monastic traditions?

Biting the Bullet

Or maybe I just need to suck it up and keep going.  Though I am tempted, I chose not to leave the world behind and hide myself away. I am here for a reason.  I am going through this process for a reason.  I picked up that book by Norman Vincent Peale, way back in 1981, for a reason.  It began the process, a process I am determined to finish even if I have to do it alone. I have something to share with the world...I am not sure what this is exactly  yet...not sure the world is even ready for it or for me and my strange ideas :) but I got to do what I am here to do.  That simple.  So I bite the bullet and go on.

Peace will follow

Though I might not be experiencing all the peace I want to feel right now, in this early part of the waking up process,  I am confident it will come. I am going in the right direction. Of that, I am sure. I will be led, if not by an actual alive person lol, by Something within me to where I am supposed to go. I am getting many inklings of that peace now...so I know it is there.  I just need to be patient as I wait for the healing to be complete.

But when you move amidst the world of sense, free from attachment and aversion alike, there comes the peace in which all sorrows end, and you live in the wisdom of the Self.
Gita 2:64-65

All is well.

References/ Reads

A Course in Miracles

Easwaran, Eknath (2009) Translation of The Bhagavad Gita. Tamales: Nilgiri Press

Ego Dressings

We are told that we are broken,

and are instructed to look away

as “wound coverings”  are applied

so expertly

by Ego’s competent hands.

With what seems like loving patience,

It hides the wounds

that it, itself, has made.

 

Gauze and padding

is applied

layer,

by layer,

by layer,

creating a thick

and life absorbing dressing

over who we really are.

It looks neat.

It looks secure.

It looks like it will protect,

our vulnerable and tender flesh from

the dangerous world around us.

So we do not dare to peek at

what lay beneath,

at what we are told,

by Ego’s hissing reprimands,

is ugly and infected. 

 

Yet the dressing is so tight

and restricting,

limiting our movement,

preventing the life blood

from  turning our beings pink

with new growth,

making our bodies throb with pain,

while offering no hope of healing.

Something within tells us to

remove each layer…

though it stings to do so .

Something guides us to expose

the hidden flesh

to the air

that longs to caress it.

So we gingerly push

Ego’s prying hands aside

and we remove the dressing

bit by bit,

piece by piece,

 until what lay beneath can be seen,

until it can breathe,

until we can look down to  see

that no wounds were ever there.

All that is exposed is perfect Wholeness

and a light that shines ego away.

“Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Therein lies the peace of God.”

Dale-Lyn 2018

 

I don't know ...again feel compelled to put this up but it will probably only stay up for a day.  I am feeling the sting right now of exposed flesh.  I may have taken the dressing off, knowing that it should be off, but boy does it sting!  Exposing myself through sloppy poetry is not going to help the sting lol.

So many Similarities

There are so many similarities in all the religious or spiritual doctrines and scriptures I am studying lately.  So many connecting points.  I am reading the Gita again, a beautiful translation with guided explanation from Eknath Easwaran (2007).  The whole notion of the changeless Self that too often lays beneath our conscious awareness as we focus on the ever-changing world of form is everywhere...different names, different terminology but the same idea.   I see the connection a lot between A Course in Miracles and The Gita on the topic of the need to break free of ego and its illusions.

 

The Gita (2: 71)



They are forever free who break away from the ego-cage of I, me and mine to be united with the Lord.

 

ACIM (opening introduction)

 

Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.

 

 



Lesson Four: Ego's Game of Suffering

All conditioned things are impermanent-when one sees this with wisdom,one turns away from suffering.
The Buddha (Dhammapada 277)

A very, very sad and desperate thing occurred in my community yesterday.  My daughter came home in tears.  I held her in my arms and we both cried, knowing we were unable to do anything but experience the sadness, the fear and the intense sympathy for those who were suffering. 

The Game

Every now and again we are made aware of just how precious and fragile our physical lives are, how quickly and desperately the last breath can be taken or taken away. Even more fragile than our bodies are the perceptions and illusions we have about life and self. We get  attached to those illusions for whatever reason. Like the roll of the die they can bring us temporarily up or temporarily down, "elated by fortune or depressed by bad luck" but never to the true Source of peace. Too often they bring us suffering   generated by the fear of losing and we occasionally see the desperate consequence of it.

When that happens in a community, we are shaken to the core.  "Oh man"...we say, "What are we playing and why?" We then may realize we invested too much into playing something that is not real  at the expense of the player. Maybe as a whole we need to put down our chips, our markers, and our  our dice.  Maybe we need to examine  our need for the thrill of competing and bluffing our ways from one move to the next in hope that we will win while someone else loses. Maybe we need to see that it is just a game that we are playing, a game we do not have to play. Maybe we will someday see that the game will never bring what we truly need which is peace of mind.

Choosing Peace over suffering; Love over Ego

This peace is already in us but so many of us cannot see it because we and the rest of the world are "too busy" playing ego games. We are too busy listening to ego, guided by ego, "in love" with ego. We are too busy creating reasons about why we cannot be at peace at ego's direction. It is ego's intention that we play and lose. It will make promises; it will lure us in by allowing us to win a few hands but it will not sustain us. We will lose by the rules laid out on the board by ego.. So why are we playing?

Life is not a game.  Life is a precious and sacred experience divinely guided, and orchestrated by Love. We will only recognize that though if we stop playing a game we will never win and begin living something we cannot lose.

Going off on a tangent, aren't I?  This will be the first part of Lesson Four which is  about understanding what the ego is and what it does to keep us from peace. 

All is well in my world.

Learning from The Gita

On this path effort never goes to waste, and there is no failure.  Even a little effort toward spiritual awareness will protect you from the greatest fear.
Opening page and 2:40, translations of The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran

There are many translations of the Gita and many interpretations of what the above quote means.  Traditional Hindus might translate the original Sanskrit to mean  that the path is all about  the performance of Vedic rituals and the greatest fear is that of not coming back in the next life in human form. I am not Hindu and do not see the words in the same context. 

I see them as meaning that as long as we attempt to awaken and connect to God than we are on the right path. Every bit of effort we put in to that process means we can not fail. Our greatest fear, I believe, is that of being separated from God.

Of course, I have no true understanding of these scriptures nor should I pretend to.  These are my interpretations only.

What is the Spiritual Path according to the Gita?

I love this from Easwaran's translation of the Gita:

Arjuna: Tell me of those who live always in wisdom, ever aware of the Self, O Krishna; how do they talk, how sit, how move about?

Sri Krishna:They live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them, whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed every selfish desire and sense craving tormenting the heart. ...Not agitated by grief or hankering after pleasure, they live free from lust and fear and anger....Fettered no more by selfish attachments, they are not elated by good fortune or depressed by bad. Such are the seers.....Even as a tortoise draws in its limbs, the wise can draw in their senses at will....

(2:55-58)

Huh?

I believe the spiritual path involves finding the true Self within us. It is an inward journey towards awakening. To me, this path entails getting beyond ego's hold to the seer within. (My ego right now is  big, red and throbbing like a broken nose.  It is hard to see beyond it.)  It is ego that causes suffering through our need and our constant seeking of  "selfish desire" and craving. When ego is in charge we are agitated by our emotions: grief, the need for pleasure, lust, fear and anger. The five senses in our body rule because we see ourselves as our bodies and experience the world through our bodies. Our selfish desires would include our need for success, recognition, material wealth, things and good opinion.

The seer, however,  is wise, making the Love of God the priority in life.  Those who allow the seer to rule their experience  are in control of the senses(their bodies) and  of their emotional reactions. They see themselves in all living things.  The seer exists in a place of peace.  

Having a Hard Time Getting past ego to Peace.
 
Sigh!
 
What I want from life more than anything else is peace of mind, to experience life through the seer's eyes. I know I am going in the right direction...just walking forward (inward) as the Buddha said to do but man is my ego resisting.  :) It is a challenge to get around it and its reactions to life circumstance.  I know in my heart that all the loss I am experiencing is a good thing (that loss includes any chance for conventional external support in returning to wellness or some form of financial balance, my house and all I own in the material form, my physicality, my job, my titles, and most recently  my reputation as a good teacher.) This so called "suffering" is taking me forward...to a place where I am not elated by good fortune or depressed by the bad. I know that it is a positive thing but man does it sting.lol. 
 
There are moments when I catch myself reacting rather than responding to life   I caught  myself yesterday striving so hard physically, mentally and emotionally to pass on  knowledge and hard earned wisdom to others who really did not want it.  As often happens in human relating when there is very understandable stress and frustration (some of it I am partially responsible for) resistance was very obvious. I was not in the place I wanted to be to "respond" appropriately to that resistance.  So I didn't.

Even though I want to get beyond a need for good opinion, I wanted to walk away from role, when the time comes, feeling good about what I accomplished and with my reputation as effective, fair and positive intact. I doubt if it is.  And I found myself thinking out loud, "Oh come on.  It is all I have bloody left other than my loved ones.  Let me leave the world of ego  comfort with at least that. " Not to be lol.(How is that for overly dramatic?)
 
Oh well...it is what it is.  All these things I perceive I lost mean nothing in the big picture. I just need to accept my life now as if I voluntarily renounced the things of the physical world for a higher calling. Even if it feels like they have been "taken from me"(that is not the case, just perception) I need to see it all as a choice I made at some point. I want to accept that they are gone and to know I do not "need" them.   From acceptance, I step into the world of the sage. It may be challenging at first, but I will find my peace there.
 
As river flows into the ocean but cannot make the vast ocean overflow, so flow the streams of the sense-world into the sea of peace that is the sage. (2:70)

All is well.
 
 
References/Recommended Reads
Easwaran, Eknath (2009) Translation of The Bhagavad Gita. Tamales: Nilgiri Press
 

Welcome! Spring Light!

A light exists in spring

not present on the year

at any other period.

When March is scarcely here

 

a colour stands abroad

on solitary hills

that science cannot overtake

but that human nature feels.

Emily Dickinson "A Light Exists in Spring."

 There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leap of Faith!

Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark.
Rabindranath Tagore

 

 Leap of Faith

 

 

I have decided to take another leap of faith.  To give up some old tired and socially ingrained beliefs that have lead to an exhausting  20 year cat and mouse  chase for me, getting me nowhere but "sicker", more broke, and stuck in fear generated despair. I asked the universe, over and over again, the old familiar question: "Why me?  Why is this assumption sticking so tenaciously to me at the cost of so much?  Why can I not get past it so I can get what I need, what I deserve?"

 

The answer is simple.  I am to learn and to grow from this wonderful experience of so called suffering.  I am to bless it and embrace it, for it is turning me around and pointing me in the direction I truly want to go in. It is showing me the healing I really need which has nothing to do with institutions the rest of society is dependent on...but on me, on what lay within me.

 

There is a Buddhist proverb found in Wayne Dyer's There is a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem (2001), "If you are facing in the right direction, all you need to do is keep walking."

 

All this time I have been facing in the wrong direction, looking for answers and help in places I will never get it.  I was stepping forward again and again, thinking I was doing all the "right" things, taking all the "right" steps for myself and others but now I realize I was going the wrong way.  I was pushing against. I was resisting what is.  Now, I  have to turn around and face another direction. 

 

There is really only one problem and therefore only one solution.  The problem I face is not in what my body seems to be doing, in my physical and emotional pain, in the financial issues or in other "life circumstances."   The solution then will never be found in the right diagnosis, the right procedure, the right treatment or the right external support. The only solution I need is God.  

 

If getting help would have been easier...I would never have gotten to this point of absolute realization. For that, I am so very grateful.

 

I am ready to take that leap of faith and walk in this other direction: inward. In order to do that, I have to disentangle myself from all that was holding me back. I have to be free. Some would call it "Giving up and giving in" but I call it freedom. Wow! How wonderful it will be to live again.

 

In the physical world sense, this thing I am deciding to do  may be seen as a risky and dangerous leap.  In the "real world" sense, however, it is just a change in direction and one tiny step forward in the "right" direction.

 

 

It is all so very good.



Only One Problem

The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been resolved. Yet the solution is not recognized because the problem is not recognized.
ACIM Lesson 79:1:4-5

Wow!  I am talking a lot about problems aren't I?  Well there is a reason for that. Well, actually a couple of reasons for that. 

Perceiving Problems

The first reason is that I am experiencing this perception of "problem" in my own life.  I am feeling somewhat distressed and dis-eased both physically and emotionally. My ego mind tells me to "solve it", "fix it" or at the very least push it aside.  Despite how much I grow away from ego, I can still hear it in the background of my life pulling at my ankles to bring me down. It tells me that I do not have the ability to solve it.  Things are not going to get better etc etc. I feel stuck in the muck...guilty and ashamed that I am here. Yuck!

The Fix

So what do I do when I feel this way? I half-listen to ego.  I call  out loud to myself and to whomever will listen be they furry or skinned, "I have a problem!"  I use the word "problem".  Then I mistake my problem for being something externally created and seek my solutions there. I  reach for something outside myself to help me resolve my issues. I ask ego:  "What do I need to do?"  I pick up books, I listen to wise teachers, I look for guidance and support outside myself.

Serendipity and Synchronicity

That brings me to the second reason, I am talking about problems.  Serendipity and synchronicity have both popped up out of the blue to guide me inward.  It seems that everything I pick up , or continue to study in the sequence it was intended...is talking about problems.  Every page I open up to is speaking to the idea of solution.  I have been studying the lessons from A Course  daily for the third time since late December.  As, on schedule, I open up to lesson 78,79...all about problems.  I found A Spiritual Solution for Every Problem by Wayne Dyer sitting on my dresser last week when I was looking for something to read before bed.  (I like to read inspirational words before I drift off) .  I don't even know how it got there but I picked it up and started reading it.  Found peace is every breath on my table yesterday and opened up to this quote, "Our happiness or lack of happiness  depends mostly on our state of mind, not on anything external."  Then I ran into YouTube Videos that spoke about our understanding of problems.  That is just to name a few of the things that were helping me with this dilemma of "perceived problem."

One Direction

The kooky thing is...they all pointed in the very same direction so there was no way I could deny where I was being told to go. Each and every thing that "showed up" both expectedly and unexpectedly pointed to the same direction to go for solutions: inward.  They showed me that the problems were not what I thought they were...they existed only in my thinking.  More importantly they were showing me that I was perceiving myself as separate from Something I can never truly be separated from. 

One Problem; One Solution

I looked inside and I realized that I was pinching God out so ego could be heard.   That and only that was the problem!!! So obviously the only solution was to stop pinching myself off...to disentangle myself from ego's hold and to step into the light where I belong. In that light, "problem" is not understood at all because it doesn't exist.

So obviously I felt compelled to do the videos yesterday...a reminder to me and to all others who might stumble upon these pages perceiving "problems" in their own lives, that there is only one problem and it is easily solved. There you have it!  (like it or not lol)

All is well in my world.

References/ Recommended Reads:

ACIM

Dyer, Wayne (2001) There is a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem. New York: Harper.

Thich Nhat Hanh (2011) peace is every breath. New York: Harper

The Solution To Every Problem

Whatever solution you seek for whatever problem you may have [perceive to have]is available to you in this moment.
Wayne. w. Dyer from There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem, page 121

Do You Believe That?

Most of us would say: "That depends on what the problem is and what you mean by this moment?" We place conditions and restrictions on these words. Most of us believe that big problems like poverty, illness, broken hearts take time to be resolved.  There are things we have to do to fix, come up with a plan, change our circumstances, get external help so that the problem is solved, don't we? So how on earth can the solution to every problem be available right now if we have not yet done the work?

All problems are internal?

Say what?  What's so internal about having no money in my account or having a roof that is leaking?  What is so internal about this mass on my belly or this car accident I was just in?

These things could definitely be  in your physical experience but they are not the problem.  The problem is how you react emotionally, cognitively and behaviourally because of the circumstances that surround you. 

Example

Some person may get into a fender bender on the way to work and get out of their car screaming, yelling, and ready to punch the other person out. They think the worse about "why these things always happen to me", worry about the damages, get caught up on how this "should not" have happened and ponder obsessively on the "what ifs" as the thoughts spiral out of control.  They then make threats and say things or do things they cannot take back.  They sue or worse physically attack the other person and get sued. They hold onto this grievance for days, weeks, decades.

The problem is not the car accident...the problem is how the person reacted to it.

Another person may have the same accident with the same amount of damages.  They may  get out of their car, smile politely at the "offender", assess the actual damage and figure it is very doable.  They may do what they are legally expected to do but forgive the other person and go on with their day. They accept what happened and then let go of it.  It is no longer a problem for them.

The Solution is Internal

What made the problem in the first scenario? The accident or the reaction?  Think about it. The solution then is working on our reaction, is it not?

Sure, having a fender bender is an annoying thing we do not want to have to experience but more than likely we will at some point in our lives have one.  It is not a problem, however, until we make it a problem.  If we look at the situation as the fellow did in scenario One, we may have some issues with our perception, our attachment of value onto things that really have so little value, our resistance to what is and with our ability to control our minds where all problems really exist. The mind is the problem, not the dented bumper. If the mind is the problem , maybe it is there we have to go for the solution.

What is a problem anyway?

Would we not agree that a problem is anything that causes discomfort, distress, or suffering of any kind? So if we want to solve it, we need to get to the cause of suffering which is not what is going on in the external world. We see instead that our perception, thinking and behavioural reactions as the cause of of our suffering.

It wasn't the accident that caused the suffering,  it was the mind.  Look at the second scenario.  Did this guy have a problem?  He had the same accident but his approach to it was peaceful.  Aha!  The answer then...the solution then to "every" problem is peace.

Peace is the solution

If we approach all external life events with in a state of peace, we will see things differently, we will experience things differently.  We will accept and emote and be done with it.  We will not hold onto grievances, stay stuck in negativity, or "suffer". We will let go and go on living the wonderful lives we were meant to.

How to Approach Life Peacefully

We need to develop peaceful minds now, before life does what it does and despite the fact that life is doing what it does.  We find moments of stillness and silence.  "Be still and Know..." We go inward instead of outward as we change our perceptions lovingly and with forgiveness. We come to terms with who we really are and from Whom we came...and man how could anything be perceived as a problem then?

The solution to every problem can be found right now by simply going inward to the peace that has always been there.

All is well in my world.

Be Kind Anyway.

 

 

Speak Beautiful Words Anyway

Anyway
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people might cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone may destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you have got anyway.

Dr. Kent M. Keith from The Paradoxical Commandments

Say What?

Aren't those Mother Teresa's words?  Isn't the real name of that poem The Final Analysis? Aren't you purposefully omitting the line: You see, in the final analysis, it is all between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway? Are you taking her beautiful words away, retitling the poem she wrote, and giving credit to someone else?  How could you?  She was a Saint?

Where the Words Really Came from

Mother Teresa was a Saint, as far as I am concerned.  She was the epitome of what we should all strive for as human beings. She was not, however, a great writer. 

She certainly lived by those beautiful words above but she  did not write them.  She actually took them  from a Harvard sophomore by the name of Kent Keith who wrote them as part of a leadership guide he created  for student council.   She loved them so much she plastered the above words on the wall of her Calcutta mission in poem like verse.  She...oops...forgot to credit the author when she did so.  So when author, Lucinda Vardey, visited the mission in order to write Mother Teresa's biography she noticed the poem  on the wall and spoke about it in her book, Mother Teresa: A Simple Path. Reverend Schuller also saw this poem when he later visited the mission and accredited the words to Mother Teresa, sharing them as hers in his book, Turning Hurts into Halos. They were not, however, her words.(http://www.kentmkeith.com/mother_teresa.html)

Does it matter?

I mean when we believe they came from someone we revere as a saint  we put a more Divine quality into them don't we?  We speak them with more reverence and meaning. When we discover that they were part of a leadership guide for the Harvard student council...well maybe they don't punch us in the heart strings quite as much? 

Speak the Words with Reverence Anyway

Still the words themselves are beautiful regardless of who wrote them or for what reason.  They are still divinely inspired, would you not say?  And the impact they have had on the world demonstrates that. Lines have been stripped from the original, lines have been added; titles have even changed over the years  but the idea of forgiving, being kind, succeeding in spite of challenges, building and creating for the sake of building and creating, being honest, happy and doing good no matter what...well isn't that Life's universal lesson?  Isn't that what Mother Teresa and so many other great humans exemplified?  Isn't that what makes the world a better place?

It really isn't about authorship, exacting detail, about receiving or giving credit...it is about giving and living and Being the best we can be.  So though Keith did not receive the credit ego tells us is required in this busy world...look at the impact he made by writing those words...anyway.

All is well.

References/Suggested Readings

Keith, Kent. Dr (2018) The Mother Teresa Connection in Finding Personal Meaning in a Crazy World. Retrieved from http://www.kentmkeith.com/mother_teresa.html

Only One will

Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done, on earth as in heaven....
Matthew 6:10 and a line from the Lord's prayer.  (No need to check this out is there?:)

I am not here to preach.  As soon as I wrote that line out...that beautiful line from a Lord's prayer, I felt that is how I would likely come across.  Most of us have a very difficult time with allowing such words that come from the mouth or fingers of another into our spaces.

Intrusive and Offensive?

 It feels intrusive almost, like unexpected knocks on doors in the middle of the day from strangers carrying pamphlets and soul saving messages they want to share. It can be off putting.  We may feel violated almost and seek the safety of our familiar beliefs or the separate borders of defense they provide, "I am sorry...I am Catholic (or Jewish or whatever).  I don't believe what you believe", we might mutter as we, red faced, close the door on the intruder. We certainly don't tell the pamphlet wagging stranger that we have not been in church for ten years and we are not sure at this point what we believe but we are definitely not going to entertain their message. They are certainly not going to tell us what to believe.  They might as well be selling crack cocaine or child pornography for the amount of "offense" their visit creates in us.  We feel the wrongness of it, the violation of it.  We get angry. I know that.  I felt that.

Wisdom in the Words

Still, I hold firm.  I want to write those words from a Lord's prayer down.  I love those words and I embrace those words especially now while I am in the process of letting go of ego will for something so much greater.

You can feel free to slam the door on my face if you need to  I am not here to convince you of anything. I am not here defending any religious teachings... I am just looking at Matthew's words like I examine the words of writers, poets, teachers, gurus,  and scientists everywhere and finding myself amazed with the wisdom in them. I want to share that amazement.

Why are we afraid?

Then I wonder why we are so afraid of such words if they come to us unsolicited. Why are we so afraid, to the point of anger and attack, at the mere  mention of God and God's Will for us.  Why do we slam doors on the idea of Him...locking Him out of schools and social events so as not to "offend"? What is so offensive about God?

God is not Religion

Awe...then it dons on me. Ego doesn't like us talking about God...not the universal can't be disputed Truth of God.  It will allow us our religions with our distinct and separate ideations, dogmas and doctrines.  It will allow us our separate "images and names" of God because those separations help to protect it not God. You see, more violation, more war, more destruction was  done for the preservation of religious beliefs than anything else.  Among the many things ego uses to keep us separate minded, religion is probably one of the greatest tools. REligion, however, is not necessarily God.

Religion can be a wonderful thing if it stands for what God obviously is: Love.  If it promotes that at all costs even to the point of dismantling its own borders...than religion is wonderful and powerful means of bringing people to God.  But if it uses fear instead of Love, in the guise of being "Godly" and defends its separate dogmas so much so that it attacks all others who do not follow that dogma...than that is not Love, that is not God...that is fear induced hate in the name of religion.  That is ego at its worse.

God-based Being vs Ego-based doing

Lesson Four is going to discuss the ego in detail but before we can even go there we need to make that distinction between God-based being and ego-based doing. They are completely different.

What ego wills for us is not what God wills for us.  And the thing is: as much as ego tries to convince us that we can chose it's puny desires for us over God's and be happy, we really can't.  As long as we are following ego's will for us to push God out we will never be happy.  And the thing is we cannot push God out, no matter how we try.  We cannot change the Truth about who we are and from Whom we came.  We can deny it, we can close ourselves up and away from Him by avoiding and becoming completely distracted in this busy world of form and doing ...but God, in whatever form you perceive Him/Her...what ever name you call Him... never  shut us out. 

A separation between us and God can't be because we are a part of God. We cannot separate our will from God's either. God's Will for us is already done, on Earth and in Heaven. The question is, are we  going to open the door and get to know Him and that Will, our will  all over again. Are we going to continue slamming doors on one another, defending and attacking or are we going to accept that there is only One God and One will we all share?

All is well in my world.

Lesson Three: Knowing who You Are and from Whom You Came

To Know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.
Eckhart Tolle ( https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/eckhart_tolle_571625)

So Lesson Two is a big one and a challenging one.  Getting beyond our ego thinking is not a simple thing to do for most of us.  We are caught up in these mental modifications, as Patanjali referred to them (Satchidananda, 2011), that are in the way of this knowledge.  To get there to our remembering and recognizing our True Self (because basically that is all it is we need to do is remember), we remove the thought barrier that exists between us and Self, between illusion and Truth.

Lesson Three : Knowing Who we really are and from Whom we came can probably be summed up through the teachings of ACIM .  We just need to get through the first hundred pages of text to define what we are.

Who You Really are:

• You are spirit
• You are a divine creation; a child of God
• You are powerful. "Nothing made by a child of God is without power." 3: VII:1:7 (page 49)
• You are beyond humility. "Spirit is beyond humility, because it recognizes its radiance and gladly sheds its light everywhere. 4:I:12;3(page 56)
•  You are light.
• You are beyond the need for protection
• You are immortal and eternal. "Spirit is immortal, and immortality is a constant state."4:II:11:9 page 59
• You are a temple, an altar for the Kingdom of Heaven.  "The Kingdom of Heaven is you." 4: III:1:4
• "...You both have everything and you are everything." 4:III:9;5..pg 62
• You are completely whole.  You are complete.
• You are the holder of everything and the giver of everything.  You create as the Father creates. 5: I: 1:8...page 73
• You are truly blessed
• You are guiltless
• You are joy 5:V:2:3...pg 83
• You are Love 6:I:13:2...pg 94
• You are peace
• You are invulnerable.  You cannot hurt or be hurt
• "You cannot be hurt, and do not want to show your brother anything except your wholeness." 5:IV:4:4...pg 82
• You are a part of God's Thought and cannot think a part from Him. 5:V:6:16...pg 85
• You are a teacher, "As you teach so shall you learn."6:I:6;1...pg 93
• You are a healer
• You are responsible for what you believe...6: 1:7
• You are equal to your brother
• You are a creator. "God created you to create." 6:II:8:4
• You are a timeless extension meant to extend 6:II;8:1-4
• You are the light of the world.  "Each of us is the light of the world, and by joining our minds in the light we proclaim the Kingdom of God together and as one. " 6:II:13:5...99
• You are perfectly safe.  "The perfectly safe are wholly benign." 6:III:3:4...pg 100
• You are blessed and you bless.6:III:3:5

Whom did we come from?

We came from creation and I see the Creator as God.  Others may refer to God  as Source, the Universe, Life.  I use "God"...and I no longer see the paternal figure with the long beard who lives, judges and condemns in a place up there in the sky somewhere away from me.  I "feel" a God within me, through me  and in all things around my body.  I am beginning to truly understand that God is the Ocean of Life and in this short life span I am living now I am simply a glass of water taken from that Ocean. My body is the glass and when the glass has served its purpose and no longer contains all that I am...I will flow back, be evaporated back, absorbed back into this Ocean of Life and Love where I always was and always will be.

How cool is that?

ACIM(2007) A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume: Third Edition. Mill Valley: Foundations For Inner Peace.

Sri Swami Satchidananda(2011) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Buckingham: Integral Yoga Publications.

Oh...The Things People Say

 It cannot speak, For Truth has better deeds than words to grace it.
William Shakespeare (Well...I think it was William Shakespeare lol. Two Men from Verona, Act 2,Scene 2)

What People Say

Yesterday, I felt myself somewhat concerned about the things people say. Not about me really but in general.

Oh I am sure someone could have read my entry yesterday and said out loud to the cat or to the air, "WTF(frontdoor)", or if it was someone I know they might have called someone else I know on the phone to say, "Do you know what crazy thing she said today?  She is hearing crackling in her ears and she thinks she is now woo-woo enlightened." Someone else might just say to themselves, This chick is crazier than a bag of hammers or off her rocker. 

Uh hah...now that is what I want to talk about....the words we use over and over again  and who they actually belong to.

The Bizarre Things We Say?

Who came up with those clichés anyway?  Why is a woman a chick?  Why is a bag of hammers crazy...and what does it mean to be crazy? What does it mean to be off the rocker? Who started these phrases and why have they stuck?  What kind of impact do they have?  We may not know where these particular phrases came from but it is obvious the initiator was not enlightened ( crackly or not :))  These phrases wreak of negative stigma and minimization of women, those who suffer from mental illness and the elderly. Not all phrases we cling to will be so nasty but we need to be careful, with even the inspiring words we adopt from others, about the authorship and the meaning we apply to them.

Did They Really Say That ?

Yesterday, I was looking for a quote from my man Albert Einstein that would support my idea that everything is vibration.  In my mind that is where I got those words...they came from his mouth, didn't they?  That is why I adhered so much to that idea.  He made a believer out of me because of who he was. You see, I was so sure I knew Albert (I like to use his first name lol)  well...like we were tight.  We were after all, despite the fact that I can barely count let alone solve and create complex mathematical formulas that can answer and pose the greatest mind blowing questions about life...were on the same wave length.  I read his words about Spinosa, his theories ( the simply phrased ones) and his letters to a grieving friend...and I read all those quotes from him posted over the internet. I knew him well didn't I because I knew his words? I couldn't find evidence that those words, "Everything is vibration" came from him.  I was heart broken.

Were they even Einstein's words?

It just got me thinking...that's all.  And as you know by now...it is not a good thing to get me thinking. So I did some research.  If you go to a spirituality site, they would attest without offering exact evidence that the quotes with Einstein's name on them that related to anything spiritual were his words.  If you go to a physics or pure science site...you get blasted for even thinking Einstein would say or think such a thing. In their minds Einstein's philosophies and ideations were purely science and any attempt to add a new age spin to them was seen as almost blasphemous. Where was my connecting link between science and spirit going to go now? What I wanted from him I might not be able to claim.

You see...I am pretty good at checking my sources and I have a tendency to go back to the original document in order to validate what someone has said...with the exception of quotes.  If I see the same quote worded exactly the same way on more than one site ( and I will check) I will assume that it is correct and I will plop it down here. Now I am realizing that is not enough. Have I been misquoting all along?  Have we all been?  Have we been clinging to words and giving them more meaning than we should?  Have we been attaching inappropriate authorship,  cultural connotations, hidden meanings and our intentions to them?


Just Words

Words are just words and who knows what Albert Einstein or anyone really said or didn't say?  Unless one is following a person around 24-7 with a recording device how would we know?  And if they did quote something...whose to say they didn't get it from someone else?

Words are just symbols that we apply meaning to.  They were not born with meaning. Does it really matter who said what and what they meant? (I mean...don't misquote...be sure of your authors...but...does it really matter?) If the words give meaning to you, express meaning for you...isn't that all that is important?

It doesn't really matter what I say does it? I never said I was enlightened because my ears crackle lol...I said I am discovering that there is so much "noise/music" beyond the surface of our busy world that we all have the potential to tap into...You may not believe that because I am, after all, just a farmed baby fowl...who is suffering the same form of psychosis carpenter's tools neatly grouped together in  a plastic carrying receptacle suffer from.  And I am stepping up and walking away from the moving chair I was sitting on. :)

All is well.

Check out this site if you want to have your quote investigated: https://quoteinvestigator.com/

Hearing the Vibration of Life

A Moment's Indulgence

I ask for A moment's Indulgence to sit by thy side.  The works

 I have in hand I will finish afterwards.

 

Away from the site of thy face my heart knows no rest or respite,

and my work becomes an endless toil in an endless sea of toil.

 

Today the summer has come to my window with its sighs and murmurs; and

the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.

 

Now, it is time to sit face to face with thee, and to sing

dedication to life in this silent overflowing leisure.

-Rabindranath Tagore (https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-moments-indulgence/)

 



Becoming aware of the vibrations of life

Something strange has been happening to my hearing lately. Just as my physical eyes no longer see as clearly as they used, no matter what types of lenses I put over them...my hearing has changed.  I am becoming more and more aware of a vibrating hum and less and less aware of certain high pitched noises.  Okay, okay...I know...there is a physical cause.  I have taught pathophysiology for enough  years to know that.  The books would define  the changes as good old presbycusis and presbyopia (the visual and hearing changes associated with "old age".) The humming itself could be tinnitus.

Something tells me otherwise, that the sensory changes I am experiencing are more a result of waking up than getting older.

Say what crazy lady?

It sounds crazy I know but my eye sight has changed dramatically only since I started closing my eyes more to look inward.  Almost as if to say, I do not need that type of outward sight as much anymore.

My hearing well, it is more than tinnitus.  This humming is not one bit annoying.  It is actually very, very soothing and pleasant.  And it is not that my hearing is less acute. It seems that I am hearing the vibrations of life that exist beneath the cacophony of superficial physical world noise.  I can get beyond the high pitched shrills of action to the constant soothing  hum of beingness.

I seem to hear everything humming if I focus: the machinery around me, appliances, my computer, my pets,  and the resonance from all the voices directed at me. Each thing has a different and distinct hum that melts into all the other hums. And there is something inside me I have never noticed before  humming sweetly all the time. It has always been there but I am just noticing it, appreciating it and embracing it for the first time. 

Everything is Vibration

Everything is vibration...absolutely everything. 

If you want to know the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.
Nikola Tesla (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/361785-if-you-want-to-find-the-secrets-of-the-universe)

We cannot hear that vibration.  We can not feel that vibration as long as we are running around focusing on other things; as long as we are doing and lost in our thinking.  It is only when we learn to stop and be still that we hear it and we experience it.

Yesterday afternoon was the first time I experienced it fully.  I was just finishing up some writing, pretty pleased with myself that I created something...that I had that wonderful experience of having that creative flow, Source, Energy, The  field, Muse...whatever you want to call it... flow through me and I heard it.  I heard it first coming from the computer...it just seemed so loud suddenly  grabbing my attention; then I heard it resonating in the gaps between my old dog's snoring; and in the lights above my head.  And I stopped and closed my eyes to hear an even sweeter hum coming from me...crackly, staticky but perfect...like the distant buzz of insects...cicadas or bees in a grove.  The more I listened, the louder it got. I found myself smiling, than laughing for no explicable reason.

Is this what Tagore felt?

 I don't know how long it lasted.  When it was over I got up quickly to make sure no one seen me in my solitary laughing frenzy lol and then I thought of Tagore's poem.  It made  even more sense to me.  Tagore spoke about this hum in A Moment's Indulgence.  All the sighs and murmurs were, I believe, the little sounds that so often go unnoticed when we are caught up in our "toil". These bees plying their minstrelsy in the court of the flowering grove...were they the buzzing vibration of life and was the flowering grove the awakening that was taking place inside of him?

Oh well, we will never know.  But we do not need to know other's experience and understanding of things, do we? We just need to know our own which is actually the One Truth we all share.  And how do we truly know?  By going inward to the silence and the stillness of the now, to the only place where we truly see and truly hear.

How cool is that?


References

Good reads quotes (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/361785-if-you-want-to-find-the-secrets-of-the-universe

Poem Hunters (https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-moments-indulgence/)

Sending a Story to the King's Court

I had a period where I thought I might not be good enough to publish.
Stephen King (https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/publish)

So I finished that short story I have been working on and where did I send it?  The New Yorker lol.  I know, I know...sounds pretty grandiose  but I sent it there for two reasons:

 1) I owed them the first reading (whether they want it or not lol) because they kind of offered the seed for this story to grow.  What I didn't mention prior to my grand inspiration at 4 am that night was that I had happened upon an article earlier that day that  addressed this labelling and assumption thing I was going through  from a medical perspective. The article written in the New Yorker addressed to physicians  spoke about the dilemma "they had" in dealing with certain patients who they labelled a certain way. It rattled me so much. I hate labels anyway but it was like, what about the patient you took an oath to care for, what about the human behind the label?  Have you thought about what your labelling would do to them? So I told myself even though the article is 15 years old that I would write a non fiction response to it, which I intended to do. That night, however, the muses of fiction were calling me and out the story came. It offered me a way to release a deep seated grievance so I could forgive and move on.

At first, I didn't even connect my inspiration to write this particular story to  the article I read.  The realization, that it was entirely based on that article, came to me as I was searching for a place to send it. Instantaneously, it became clear as to where I had to send it. It was all deeply inspired action and that is pretty cool...Even if the editors at The New Yorker don't think so, the Universe knows how inspired this all is. :)

2) I am tired of thinking small and being retracted. If I am going to put myself out there, to step out of my comfort zone, I might as well do it big...the go broke or stay home cliché.  If I am going to get rejected, it might as well be by the best of them lol.  If I am going to be slapped into some slush pile it may as well be one that is soft and well cushioned by thousands of other unwanted manuscripts. I know there I will be in good company. 

Not that any press is  less worthy of my submissions lol...I appreciate any consideration and usually seek the comforting arms of small lesser known presses to wrap my submissions in. When I write about sending my story to "the top" I am just looking at what others have crowned with royal acclaim. In the literary realm, where is the King's Court writers want to be called to?...In the office of the New Yorker.

This is the second time I sent to them...the third... if you count the time 20 years ago when I sent a story to "The New York Times" thinking they and The New Yorker were one and the same thing.  I got a long , have you any idea how stupid you are  letter back from someone there. (That's so funny now as I think about it.)

You may ask, considering my very miniscule chance of ever being published there, "What for?" and I want to answer "What if?" What if and why not feel so much better than what for and how could you.

How do we feel when we think big and  reach for the stars?  That is the big question in life, as it is in writing.  It really isn't about publication: where, how, when or even if.  It is about writing and completing the cycle .  The submission process is an important  part of the writing cycle. It feels good to think about having a story being considered by The New Yorker even if the consideration doesn't get past my name, title and word count.  :) It still feels good.  It feels good to know that I took a chance...that I am taking risks, that I am allowing myself to expand. It's fun!!!

This whole writing thing can be fun!!! And it is exciting as we think about the unlimited possibilities. Feeling good  is what it is all about and that is why I submitted to The New Yorker.

Isn't  the life of a writer...any writer, published or not... grand? Isn't life itself grand?

All is well in my world!

Holding Grievances, a Block to Love and Self

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not rejoice in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.   Love never fails.  But where there are prophecies they will cease; where there are tongues they will be stilled; where there is knowledge it will pass away. 
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NIV (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13%3A4-8&version=NIV)

The Letter

I would be lying if I said I understood exactly what Paul wanted to tell the citizens of Corinth with this letter and with this particular passage in it. Everything has been translated over and over in a thousand different ways.  Like most of the bible it is almost impossible to interpret it exactly in the way it was intended.   I do know from a bit of historical research that his intention with the two letters he wrote to the Corinthians was to get them to see the error of their ways. He felt that the Greek and  pagan backgrounds they had prior to converting to Christianity ( non-monogamous marriages etc) set a bad example for Christianity.  He wanted to impose a greater sense of "morality" in this area. I would hazard to guess, that he wanted to impart a better understanding of what Christian love was as opposed to pagan love with this particular passage. 

As far as I am concerned, it really doesn't matter why Paul wrote those words...their truth is universal even to us "New agers" whom more traditional  interpreters of Paul's words  may include in the list of "evildoers" addressed. :)

How it ties into Lesson Two

Regardless, the words are beautiful and full of Truth. As we embark into a better understanding of who we are...I want you to firstly focus on this line, It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. This line goes perfectly with Lesson 68 in A Course.  Love holds no Grievances.

The final step necessary in getting beyond our thinking to who we really are, which btw, is Love, is to stop holding grievances. A Course says that to hold a grievance is to forget who we are.  It is to deny that we were created by Love and are love.

As long as we hold any form of grievance against another human being...and lets face it, we all hold grievances against absolutely everyone in one form or another....we will never feel connected.  We will never feel safe. Our sense of separation from God and from each other is perpetuated by ego's insistence that we have a reason to be upset with one another. We then put up our defenses and watch through the peek holes of these immense walls we built around ourselves  for reasons to defend, reasons to attack.  We collect grievances.

From self-seeking to Self-seeking

We want to remember who we are which is not "self-seeking" as the NIV translations describes Paul's words...but Self-seeking.  Self is this connected unified being that we all are,  The person we hold grievances against is actually a part of this Self, a part of who we  are. So as long as we hold others away and apart from our little self because they "wronged us" in some way, we are not loving...and if we are not loving ...we are not being who we are: Love.

So how do we get there?

We forgive.  We put down our weapons of justification and rationalization about why this person deserves our wrath or our frustration. We stop building walls between us and them. We choose, instead,  to see the good in all. 

That does not mean you have to like, condone or deny what the other person may have done. It simply means you look beyond the deed to the doer remembering these famous words if you have to, "They know not what they have done."  So many of us do not know what we are doing...we may be sick, lost in ego, convinced we know something we do not know, forgetting and truly believe we are right and doing good. Look beyond the ego imperfection to the perfection within.

We make a choice with forgiveness regardless of what the "wrongdoer" may have done or not done, to look at them in friendship, in brotherhood, in peace. Without weapons, without walls, without defenses and without attack there will be nothing separating us from them.  We will then and only then be connecting to form the Self.  And it is the Self that we are seeking, is it not?

To find yourself stop finding fault and start loving instead. 

I will not look at another's bowl intent on finding fault: a training observed.
The Buddha ( http://www.realbuddhaquotes.com/)

All is well in my world.

References/ Recommended Reads

ACIM (2007) Lesson 68, pages 115-116.A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume: Third Edition. Mill Valley: Foundation for Inner Peace.

Bible Gateway. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13%3A4-8&version=NIV

Real Buddha Quotes http://www.realbuddhaquotes.com/

Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (n.d.) Letter of Paul to the Corinthians in Encyclopaedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-literature/The-Pauline-Letters#ref598129