Friday, May 31, 2019
Harmonized by the Breath of Vacancy
In the Way, nothing is personal. You are merely an instrument in the hands of the forces, participating in the harmony of balance. You must reach a point where your whole interest lies in the balance and not in any personal preference for how things should be.
Michael Singer, the untethered soul, page 171
I was surprised to see a chapter about the Tao in the untethered soul. I forgot about it. I was even more surprised to see how the above quote relates so beautifully to the next eight verses I am presently on. There reall is an underlying truth to all great teachings, isn't there?
Chapter/Verse 42
All things leave behind the obscurity(out of which they have come) and go forward to embrace the brightness (into which they will emerge), while they are harmonized by the Breath of Vacancy.
Hmm! This one got me thinking. :) All things, that started as one thing becoming two, then three and then multiplying into "the ten thousand things," other versions speak of, come from nothing or the 'unknown'. I believe that is what Legge meant by obscurity.
Once they emerge, appear or are manifested, created, or come into the world of form, they immediately proceed to go forward to 'embrace the brightness'. I take that to mean that they begin their journey of moving toward the light...toward enlightenment, truth, knowing who they are. From the moment they are born their journey is a spiritual one...to get to the point where they can embrace the brightness (God...though Lao Tzu doesn't use that reference).
They (all creations, all beings) are harmonized, brought to a state of balance or homeostasis by the Breath of Vacancy. What is the Breath of Vacancy? Legge capitalized these letters so I assume he meant that it was the divine force. Of course the Breath could be that breath...that force that sustains us...that makes the non living...living. It is breath that makes the non living alive and vice versa, right? The yogis refer to this as 'prana'.
He also said it was a Breath of Vacancy. What does Vacancy mean, here? I think of the Buddhist Shunyata or emptiness, the still spaciousness that is infinite and empty. Hmm! This Breath of Vacancy is the eternal Life force that balances things between heaven and earth? It is the life force that comes from the empty center. It is the Tao?
He goes on to say that men do not like to have no attachments, no direction or no identification? Though those who strive to lead know they must leave these things behind. Some things become greater when they have less...and some things are diminished by having more.
Lao Tzu then says, according to Legge's translation, that he wants the basis of his teaching to be that men who are violent and aggressive will die possibly in this way ( not their natural death). Is he basing his teaching on the importance of gentleness, humility and peace?
Chapter/Verse 43
The softest thing in the world dashes against and overcomes the hardest...
Here again I believe Lao Tzu is saying that gentleness, humility and peace are much stronger than hard aggressive force. He may also be talking about the strength of the spiritual (the unseen, the formless) against the hard form the physical world provides. Spirit can enter anywhere because it has no form. Instead of forcing our way through life ( acting, fighting, struggling) there is an advantage to doing nothing and simply being. Few will "get it"...if taught without words or mental concepts; ...that it is better to be than to act.
Chapter/Verse 44
This was another rhyme scheme verse in the form of a riddle lol. Basically what Legge is telling us that Lao Tzu is saying that we have a choice. We can choose Life..."the Breath of Vacancy" or we can choose ego cravings, attachments and ideas: riches, fame, fear, blame etc. We can't have both. If we choose ego we do not live in spirit or "the Way". If we choose the way...we won't need any of these things.
Chapter/Verse 45
Purity and stillness give the correct law to all under heaven.
This is an important line I think and it brings me back to "being harmonized by the Breath of Vacancy".
It also reminds me of Michael Singer's analogy in his reference to understanding the Tao(the untethered soul). We can look at the laws of Life like the force that that moves a pendulum back and forth. Each side of the pendulum offers equal but opposing forces. On one side you might find what is considered "happiness" . With a small nudge, the pendulum will swing an equal distance in the opposite direction and we will find an equal amount of "unhappiness or sadness". But without movement, without outside forces be they mental or actual...the pendulum does not move. It stays still and pure in the center. He described this as being with the Tao. If we can stay centred and are not fluctuating back and forth between feeling good about our deeds or feeling ashamed we are harmonized, balanced, living the Tao??? Do thou what's straight still crooked deem.
I might be right off the tracks on this understanding lol.
Chapter/Verse 46
Therefore the sufficiency of contentment is an enduring and unchanging sufficiency.
Contentment with "what is" is something that will last and not pass away as things around us change. To be able to accept Life as it is, is the greatest achievement. It is the way of the Tao. When we regard the Tao we are humble and use what we have to do humble things ( using our horses to carry the dung-carts). When we disregard the Tao we anticipate a need for defense and attack, we prepare for it by breeding our horses to go to war. Preparation for violence is a world without the Tao. The ordinary moment to moment stuff is ignored. Seeking ambition will lead to guilt; being discontented with one's lot in Life will lead to calamity; and wanting, craving and striving are faults.
If one's life is simple, contentment has to come. simplicity is extremely important for happiness. -Dalai Lama
Chapter/Verse 47
Without going outside his door one understands (all that takes place) under the sky
I love this! All we need to know is not "out there", it is "in here." We can understand Life and the world by going inward. The answers lie within the True Self and the further we get from that Self, the less we will understand and know.
and accomplished their ends without any purpose of doing so
We can follow in the sample of the sages who gained their knowledge from within and did not seek, or strive to get it. They simply were and allowed it to come to them without "the purpose of doing so". They were not attached to outcome.
Chapter/Verse 48
Those who daily practice and seek knowledge will gain it; those who daily seek the Tao will diminish their doing. The seeker reduces his doing and reduces it some more until he is doing nothing. And when he reaches this state of non-action, there is nothing he cannot do.
Hmm! The best most productive action comes from not acting...choosing Being over doing. It is struggling to achieve that creates trouble and our inability to get what we are wanting. We must not strive, struggle or fight to achieve. We must be unattached to outcome.
Chapter/Verse 49
The sage has no invariable mind of his own...
Lao Tzu is saying that he is good to people who are good to him; and he is good to people who are not good to him...that way he is good to all and all get to be good. He does the same with his sincerity.
He remains indifferent, not judging based on how he is treated by others. He does not say who deserves his kindness and sincerity and who doesn't...he treats all the same regardless. This makes him appear indecisive and indifferent but it is equanimity he teaches. This is what makes people follow him.
Those eight chapters were a little easier on the brain cells. :)
All is well.
James Legge (1895) Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching https://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/taote.htm
Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger.
Thursday, May 30, 2019
The Highest Non-Attachment
The moment you understand yourself as the true Self, you find such peace and bliss that the impressions of the petty enjoyments you experienced before become as ordinary specks of light in front of a brilliant sun. You lose all interest in them permanently. This is the highest non-attachment.
-Sri Swami Satchinanda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, page 28
Say what crazy lady?
I love this quote. It is probably one of my favorite excerpts from Satchidananda's translation and interpretation of Patanjali's sutras. I know I have used it here several times before but now I see that the thought behind it just may be the basis of Michael Singer's book, the untethered soul. Have I suggested that you read that Yet? :)
We are talking about Letting Go/
Letting Go of What?
Letting Go of what you so desperately clung to?
So all those shining, dazzling objects that danced around your eye sockets and that may have caught your attention in your unconscious state suddenly become ordinary specks of light when you wake up. When you see from clear and conscious vision...you see and experience the sun directly in all its unimagined brilliance. These thoughts, ideas, impressions you thought were worth reaching up to grab and cling to are suddenly "ordinary" and not worth your time and effort. You lose interest in them permanently. When you let go...when you detach...you fall into the space that is your true Self...and you discover what is important.
Hmmm! Something to think about.
-Sri Swami Satchinanda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, page 28
Say what crazy lady?
I love this quote. It is probably one of my favorite excerpts from Satchidananda's translation and interpretation of Patanjali's sutras. I know I have used it here several times before but now I see that the thought behind it just may be the basis of Michael Singer's book, the untethered soul. Have I suggested that you read that Yet? :)
We are talking about Letting Go/
Letting Go of What?
Letting Go of what you so desperately clung to?
So all those shining, dazzling objects that danced around your eye sockets and that may have caught your attention in your unconscious state suddenly become ordinary specks of light when you wake up. When you see from clear and conscious vision...you see and experience the sun directly in all its unimagined brilliance. These thoughts, ideas, impressions you thought were worth reaching up to grab and cling to are suddenly "ordinary" and not worth your time and effort. You lose interest in them permanently. When you let go...when you detach...you fall into the space that is your true Self...and you discover what is important.
Hmmm! Something to think about.
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Drifting Behind the Scenes
To see, to experience, and to honor is to participate in life instead of standing back and judging it.
-Michael Singer, the untethered soul, page 177
Spiritual growth is not about getting somewhere or getting something. It is all about letting go of something. That something we let go of is our ego self...that part of the mind that really doesn't serve us.
We let go of the ' little me' and step into the world of the One Source. We let go of our lower vibrations and drift up into the higher ones of the Divine. We untangle ourselves from the web of foreground we were stuck in for so long, and we drift back behind to what is real.
When we let go of this self, we let go of anger, fear and self consciousness. We let go of restriction and retraction. We let go of guilt and shame. We let go of stress and tension.
We stop judging! We stop 'suffering'! We stop closing up and we open up.
The saints and transcended masters, who were able to experience this directly, tell us that when we let go we open up and when we open up we see what God sees and we feel what God feels...joy, love, bliss and enthusiasm for everything. We see beauty everywhere in absolutely everything.
When we let go of this idea of what we have of ourselves...separate little beings lost in "I", "me" and "mine...we will know "Thine". When we go beyond seeing and judging the world and ourselves with our mind's eye, we connect with spirit and when we do that we connect with the Source of all things. We drift back behind the scenes of the drama mind created and we are home.
The drop of consciousness, which is individual Spirit, is like a ray of light emanating from the sun. The individual ray is really no different from the sun. When consciousness stops identifying itself as the ray, it comes to know itself as the sun. Beings have merged into that state. page 176
Even when we say "no" to the sun and choose to live in darkness, for whatever reason...the sun is still there shining brilliantly. Even though we say "no" to God for whatever reason, God is still there, loving brilliantly. All we need to do is lift our heads up and turn in that direction.
We may not all transcend in this life time but letting go of what holds us back for that reality will definitely make us realize the beauty of the light. Wanting that light is all the purpose we need and turning toward it is the only thing we need to do.
All is well
Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger.
-Michael Singer, the untethered soul, page 177
Spiritual growth is not about getting somewhere or getting something. It is all about letting go of something. That something we let go of is our ego self...that part of the mind that really doesn't serve us.
We let go of the ' little me' and step into the world of the One Source. We let go of our lower vibrations and drift up into the higher ones of the Divine. We untangle ourselves from the web of foreground we were stuck in for so long, and we drift back behind to what is real.
When we let go of this self, we let go of anger, fear and self consciousness. We let go of restriction and retraction. We let go of guilt and shame. We let go of stress and tension.
We stop judging! We stop 'suffering'! We stop closing up and we open up.
The saints and transcended masters, who were able to experience this directly, tell us that when we let go we open up and when we open up we see what God sees and we feel what God feels...joy, love, bliss and enthusiasm for everything. We see beauty everywhere in absolutely everything.
When we let go of this idea of what we have of ourselves...separate little beings lost in "I", "me" and "mine...we will know "Thine". When we go beyond seeing and judging the world and ourselves with our mind's eye, we connect with spirit and when we do that we connect with the Source of all things. We drift back behind the scenes of the drama mind created and we are home.
The drop of consciousness, which is individual Spirit, is like a ray of light emanating from the sun. The individual ray is really no different from the sun. When consciousness stops identifying itself as the ray, it comes to know itself as the sun. Beings have merged into that state. page 176
Even when we say "no" to the sun and choose to live in darkness, for whatever reason...the sun is still there shining brilliantly. Even though we say "no" to God for whatever reason, God is still there, loving brilliantly. All we need to do is lift our heads up and turn in that direction.
We may not all transcend in this life time but letting go of what holds us back for that reality will definitely make us realize the beauty of the light. Wanting that light is all the purpose we need and turning toward it is the only thing we need to do.
All is well
Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger.
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Guru Ego
Don't wait for your guru. Your Life is your guru.
-Krishna Das
A Big Blob of Thinking
I am going to change gears here because I have something on my mind. I have a big blob of thinking that my mind so discriminately labelled "Guru Ego". It is bumping around inside me blocking other things from coming through so I just want to cough it up here on the page as if it were some big fur ball. (Man...nursing and pet owner experience certainly lead to some eloquent descriptions, don't they? lol)
The Story
Last night I watched the Netflix documentary entitled, Enlighten us, about the up and coming motivational speaker James Arthur Ray. In 2009, Ray lead a retreat where three people died in a sweat lodge incident. He was charged with negligent homicide and sentenced to two years in prison. He subsequently lost his large following and the billions of dollars he had earned during his time as a self-help icon.
I am not judging the incident nor am I judging him (or at least I hope I am not). What got me after watching that documentary was this gnawing feeling I couldn't really figure out, the same kind of feeling I get when I watch shows about cults.
Questioning
Questions and doubts start floating around in my head. How easy it is for people who are seeking freedom from some kind of suffering to lose themselves in some Guru they selected as a guide. How easy it is for a Guru to lose themselves in their egos and these delusions of Grandeur that arise from being "followed" by many. The gnawing feeling comes when I slip the "I", the "me" and the "mine" into that ball of thought.
What is the self-help movement? I have been a part of it since I first read Norman Vincent Peale when I was 18. Is it a cult or cult like? Am I lost in it?
Am I like those followers, desperately seeking something from others and losing my Self in the process? Could that happen to "me"? Is my experience potentially similar? Are the people I learn from "my gurus"?
Even more gnaw-producing are the questions: Am I like him? Wanting to help but getting lost as ego blows up out of control (of course I do not have the following lol)? Am I more in love with the idea of "helping" and being known as a "helper", than I am about helping? Am I erroneously assuming that I have the power to "help" all others when I cannot help myself? Am I forgetting that "helping" others is also a form of control and dis empowerment of others?
Do I actually want people to follow me?
Is my being here actually all about me...as reflected by the constant repetitive use of "I", "me' or "mine"? Am I more concerned about what has happened or can happen to "me' than I am about how what I say and do or don't say and do in this role has or can impact the lives of others?
Am I more concerned about striving, doing, "getting there" than I am about what I can give in each moment? Will a billion dollars be enough for me or will I do whatever I can to get more? Would I feel great loss of self if I did get it and lost it, or if I wasn't able to get back easily to that level of living again?
Wow! It left me feeling this knot which I am happy to report is easing as I write this.
Don't Know; Don't Want to Judge but I am
I am not sure what happened. I don't know this man other than the snippet I seen of him on The Secret and on Oprah...but I don't know him. I am sure his intentions started out well and I am sure he had some ego motivation from the beginning, as well, as most of us do. I really seen Ego at play throughout the documentary. I am also sure that he didn't want anyone to be hurt despite his obvious need to protect his ego and his "little self".
Why did he get into that business in the first place? I don't know but I sense he had a need to compensate for some sense of inadequacy he experienced as a child...and that lead maybe to a need to overcompensate. He was admittedly a "striver", a "doer" and a super-achiever. Redeemer ego can be pretty persistent. I could tell how hungry he was from how he talked to potential clients.
It would also be hard for a psyche to adjust to the "extremes" ...feeling very low and ashamed of self...to being redeemed to what he referred to at a "saviour" level. Pendulum swinging too far in each direction. Ego would inflate and one would lose sense of the True Self, a sense of the truth. The mind would lose perspective maybe...and I sensed that when he spoke about the incident, "My Life changed in fifteen minutes". There was no mention in that snippet that the life of three people changed permanently in that 15 minutes as well....which was the bigger issue
The fact that he went back to his motel room because he "had a hard week" and subsequently left people who were literally dying, wreaked of narcissism. And I thought instantly that this man had or has a personality disorder. Later when asked why he thought the incident happened...he proceeded to say that it was to challenge him. ( Three people die to challenge him?) He really couldn't see the bigger picture, beyond himself, and became a victim in his mind rather than someone at least partially responsible for a tragic incident. Well, that is how it appeared from the documentary.
This all sounds like judgment and assumption. I suppose it is. I would say he was not "centered' from the documentary but maybe he is in real life. How would I know? And who am I to know anyway?
Disenchanted and Confused
What I am trying to say is...this documentary left me a little disenchanted with the self help movement and with myself for buying into it and for trying to sell myself in it. If that is what I am doing.
I am going to have to look at my motivation for being here again. Do some self reflection. I know this gnawing feeling came for a reason. It wants me to take a look inside and to make sure that I am here for Spirit not ego.
How I want to "Help" others help themselves
I am a little weary of the term "help" especially after watching this video. I do want to do what I can so others can help themselves. Unlike the person in question, I feel compelled to stay in the background and offer what I can from here. I am glad I have little readership.
Ego will still jump in and demand more but I am learning to shut ego out. I am more than content with my numbers even when they are not adequately reflected on the stats page. I know I have so called "followers" but I am glad my site does not let me know I do. (It constantly says "0" followers which is great at keeping my ego quiet.)
I hate the term "follower" anyway. I prefer the word reader and fellow learner to follower because I know I am no expert, just a student like many of you. My motivation is quite selfish...I want to learn and I learn through teaching. I really don't want to be famous. (Which is a good thing because I will never be lol). I don't want to deal with ego at that level. I want Spirit to stay in charge. :)
That being said....I know that... neither I, nor any of us, are beyond having our egos and personalities take over. We have to be careful whenever we attempt to teach anyone anything. Without judging or condemning the people involved, we can all learn from this terrible tragedy and re-motivate ourselves at the spiritual level. We need to know that teaching, in whatever form it takes, is never about "me" but "all".
All is well.
-Krishna Das
A Big Blob of Thinking
I am going to change gears here because I have something on my mind. I have a big blob of thinking that my mind so discriminately labelled "Guru Ego". It is bumping around inside me blocking other things from coming through so I just want to cough it up here on the page as if it were some big fur ball. (Man...nursing and pet owner experience certainly lead to some eloquent descriptions, don't they? lol)
The Story
Last night I watched the Netflix documentary entitled, Enlighten us, about the up and coming motivational speaker James Arthur Ray. In 2009, Ray lead a retreat where three people died in a sweat lodge incident. He was charged with negligent homicide and sentenced to two years in prison. He subsequently lost his large following and the billions of dollars he had earned during his time as a self-help icon.
I am not judging the incident nor am I judging him (or at least I hope I am not). What got me after watching that documentary was this gnawing feeling I couldn't really figure out, the same kind of feeling I get when I watch shows about cults.
Questioning
Questions and doubts start floating around in my head. How easy it is for people who are seeking freedom from some kind of suffering to lose themselves in some Guru they selected as a guide. How easy it is for a Guru to lose themselves in their egos and these delusions of Grandeur that arise from being "followed" by many. The gnawing feeling comes when I slip the "I", the "me" and the "mine" into that ball of thought.
What is the self-help movement? I have been a part of it since I first read Norman Vincent Peale when I was 18. Is it a cult or cult like? Am I lost in it?
Am I like those followers, desperately seeking something from others and losing my Self in the process? Could that happen to "me"? Is my experience potentially similar? Are the people I learn from "my gurus"?
Even more gnaw-producing are the questions: Am I like him? Wanting to help but getting lost as ego blows up out of control (of course I do not have the following lol)? Am I more in love with the idea of "helping" and being known as a "helper", than I am about helping? Am I erroneously assuming that I have the power to "help" all others when I cannot help myself? Am I forgetting that "helping" others is also a form of control and dis empowerment of others?
Do I actually want people to follow me?
Is my being here actually all about me...as reflected by the constant repetitive use of "I", "me' or "mine"? Am I more concerned about what has happened or can happen to "me' than I am about how what I say and do or don't say and do in this role has or can impact the lives of others?
Am I more concerned about striving, doing, "getting there" than I am about what I can give in each moment? Will a billion dollars be enough for me or will I do whatever I can to get more? Would I feel great loss of self if I did get it and lost it, or if I wasn't able to get back easily to that level of living again?
Wow! It left me feeling this knot which I am happy to report is easing as I write this.
Don't Know; Don't Want to Judge but I am
I am not sure what happened. I don't know this man other than the snippet I seen of him on The Secret and on Oprah...but I don't know him. I am sure his intentions started out well and I am sure he had some ego motivation from the beginning, as well, as most of us do. I really seen Ego at play throughout the documentary. I am also sure that he didn't want anyone to be hurt despite his obvious need to protect his ego and his "little self".
Why did he get into that business in the first place? I don't know but I sense he had a need to compensate for some sense of inadequacy he experienced as a child...and that lead maybe to a need to overcompensate. He was admittedly a "striver", a "doer" and a super-achiever. Redeemer ego can be pretty persistent. I could tell how hungry he was from how he talked to potential clients.
It would also be hard for a psyche to adjust to the "extremes" ...feeling very low and ashamed of self...to being redeemed to what he referred to at a "saviour" level. Pendulum swinging too far in each direction. Ego would inflate and one would lose sense of the True Self, a sense of the truth. The mind would lose perspective maybe...and I sensed that when he spoke about the incident, "My Life changed in fifteen minutes". There was no mention in that snippet that the life of three people changed permanently in that 15 minutes as well....which was the bigger issue
The fact that he went back to his motel room because he "had a hard week" and subsequently left people who were literally dying, wreaked of narcissism. And I thought instantly that this man had or has a personality disorder. Later when asked why he thought the incident happened...he proceeded to say that it was to challenge him. ( Three people die to challenge him?) He really couldn't see the bigger picture, beyond himself, and became a victim in his mind rather than someone at least partially responsible for a tragic incident. Well, that is how it appeared from the documentary.
This all sounds like judgment and assumption. I suppose it is. I would say he was not "centered' from the documentary but maybe he is in real life. How would I know? And who am I to know anyway?
Disenchanted and Confused
What I am trying to say is...this documentary left me a little disenchanted with the self help movement and with myself for buying into it and for trying to sell myself in it. If that is what I am doing.
I am going to have to look at my motivation for being here again. Do some self reflection. I know this gnawing feeling came for a reason. It wants me to take a look inside and to make sure that I am here for Spirit not ego.
How I want to "Help" others help themselves
I am a little weary of the term "help" especially after watching this video. I do want to do what I can so others can help themselves. Unlike the person in question, I feel compelled to stay in the background and offer what I can from here. I am glad I have little readership.
Ego will still jump in and demand more but I am learning to shut ego out. I am more than content with my numbers even when they are not adequately reflected on the stats page. I know I have so called "followers" but I am glad my site does not let me know I do. (It constantly says "0" followers which is great at keeping my ego quiet.)
I hate the term "follower" anyway. I prefer the word reader and fellow learner to follower because I know I am no expert, just a student like many of you. My motivation is quite selfish...I want to learn and I learn through teaching. I really don't want to be famous. (Which is a good thing because I will never be lol). I don't want to deal with ego at that level. I want Spirit to stay in charge. :)
That being said....I know that... neither I, nor any of us, are beyond having our egos and personalities take over. We have to be careful whenever we attempt to teach anyone anything. Without judging or condemning the people involved, we can all learn from this terrible tragedy and re-motivate ourselves at the spiritual level. We need to know that teaching, in whatever form it takes, is never about "me" but "all".
All is well.
Being Ready When Death Calls
You should be experiencing the life that's happening to you, not the one you wish was happening.
-Michael Singer, the untethered soul, page163
Death Calling
So Death calls you on your cell and says to you, "Hey Bud. How's it going? ...I'm just calling to let you know that I will have to pick you up in a week. I am just so swamped with pick ups... so I need you to be ready and waiting at the door when I come, okay? Thanks man. "
What are you going to do when you hang up? Freak out? Resist? Say , "Oh man...a week...how am I going to get everything I need done in a week? That's not enough time. I need a few more weeks at least!"
Don't bother asking the dude with the cape and sickle for more time. Ain't going to happen. Singer reminds us that if we do ask , Death will probably respond with, "I already gave you 52 weeks this year alone...that should have been plenty of time to get done what you needed to get done."
What did you do, that truly mattered, with the last fifty-two weeks?
After you calm down a bit and finally accept your upcoming, timely or untimely demise, what are you going to do?
The Bucket List
Most of us will pull out the old bucket lists we have stuffed away to determine just how many of those things on it we can check off. You will get busy, I suppose, "doing" and "controlling", "manipulating" events as you try so desperately to squeeze them into your bucket. You will try to "get" more from Life while you can. You want your bucket/ your life nice and full with "special" things you have done when Death comes knocking.
Is that living? Is that making the most of the time you have left? Is that what Death meant when we were told to "Be Ready"?
Is it really important what we put into those buckets, what we check off our lists, or what we do? Or is the 'getting ready,' Death speaks to... all about simply connecting to each moment Life gives us. Maybe it is more important to go a little deeper than it is to get a little more.
Going Deeper
Your moments are numbered now. Make the most of each one.
To do that, we need to get beyond the fear and limitation that has held us back for so long and say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done. Then we need to stop striving, stop "doing", stop grasping and pushing. We need to stop resisting each moment and projecting into the next because we now know that our moments are so limited. There may not be a next. We make the most of each one...settle into each one and fully experience it, appreciate it and enjoy it. We stop seeking something out there to make it all meaningful...and simply accept that it is meaningful just as it is, whatever it is.
Look at the preciousness of Life that is all around you, that was always all around you, that you missed because you were so busy grasping, clinging and resisting. Know that it isn't yours. Life doesn't belong to any "little me" with its own agenda. Life is a beautiful, mystical thing that flows through all of us. We just get to experience it as it flows through. That's the beauty of it. That simple. The prospect of death and our own temporal reality can make us aware of that.
You Don't Need More Time
You don't need more time and you don't need more things or special events. You do not need to fill your buckets or check off your lists with these things.
You just need more depth, the kind of depth that comes with sinking into who you really are and experiencing the world from there, absorbing, accepting, appreciating and loving. It's not what you do with the time you have left. It is how you do it and how much of you, you put into doing it.
Should Live Like We Only Have a Week Left
So even when Death doesn't call in advance...and it won't for most of us :) , we need to be prepared for its inevitability. We need to be ready. We should live each week like it were our last and make the most of the precious moments that unfold before us. If we do that, when Death does come...we will be okay with it because we will know we have truly lived. It can't take that away from us.
All is well.
Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger
-Michael Singer, the untethered soul, page163
Death Calling
So Death calls you on your cell and says to you, "Hey Bud. How's it going? ...I'm just calling to let you know that I will have to pick you up in a week. I am just so swamped with pick ups... so I need you to be ready and waiting at the door when I come, okay? Thanks man. "
What are you going to do when you hang up? Freak out? Resist? Say , "Oh man...a week...how am I going to get everything I need done in a week? That's not enough time. I need a few more weeks at least!"
Don't bother asking the dude with the cape and sickle for more time. Ain't going to happen. Singer reminds us that if we do ask , Death will probably respond with, "I already gave you 52 weeks this year alone...that should have been plenty of time to get done what you needed to get done."
What did you do, that truly mattered, with the last fifty-two weeks?
After you calm down a bit and finally accept your upcoming, timely or untimely demise, what are you going to do?
The Bucket List
Most of us will pull out the old bucket lists we have stuffed away to determine just how many of those things on it we can check off. You will get busy, I suppose, "doing" and "controlling", "manipulating" events as you try so desperately to squeeze them into your bucket. You will try to "get" more from Life while you can. You want your bucket/ your life nice and full with "special" things you have done when Death comes knocking.
Is that living? Is that making the most of the time you have left? Is that what Death meant when we were told to "Be Ready"?
Is it really important what we put into those buckets, what we check off our lists, or what we do? Or is the 'getting ready,' Death speaks to... all about simply connecting to each moment Life gives us. Maybe it is more important to go a little deeper than it is to get a little more.
Going Deeper
Your moments are numbered now. Make the most of each one.
To do that, we need to get beyond the fear and limitation that has held us back for so long and say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done. Then we need to stop striving, stop "doing", stop grasping and pushing. We need to stop resisting each moment and projecting into the next because we now know that our moments are so limited. There may not be a next. We make the most of each one...settle into each one and fully experience it, appreciate it and enjoy it. We stop seeking something out there to make it all meaningful...and simply accept that it is meaningful just as it is, whatever it is.
Look at the preciousness of Life that is all around you, that was always all around you, that you missed because you were so busy grasping, clinging and resisting. Know that it isn't yours. Life doesn't belong to any "little me" with its own agenda. Life is a beautiful, mystical thing that flows through all of us. We just get to experience it as it flows through. That's the beauty of it. That simple. The prospect of death and our own temporal reality can make us aware of that.
You Don't Need More Time
You don't need more time and you don't need more things or special events. You do not need to fill your buckets or check off your lists with these things.
You just need more depth, the kind of depth that comes with sinking into who you really are and experiencing the world from there, absorbing, accepting, appreciating and loving. It's not what you do with the time you have left. It is how you do it and how much of you, you put into doing it.
Should Live Like We Only Have a Week Left
So even when Death doesn't call in advance...and it won't for most of us :) , we need to be prepared for its inevitability. We need to be ready. We should live each week like it were our last and make the most of the precious moments that unfold before us. If we do that, when Death does come...we will be okay with it because we will know we have truly lived. It can't take that away from us.
All is well.
Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger
Monday, May 27, 2019
Stop Resisting
There are certain states of mind that bring us problems, and they can be removed; we need to make an effort in that direction. Likewise, there are certain states of mind that bring us peace and happiness, and we need to cultivate and enhance them.
Dalai Lama
Good Ol' Dalai Lama echoes what is on my mind again. I open up to a calendar page from my desk calendar once again to find his words reflecting what we have been talking about.
There are parts of our old tired minds that are giving us grief. We need to learn to let those parts, that have a tendency to cling and resist, go. We also experience, from time to time, the peace and happiness that comes from an open, accepting and clear mind. That is the state we want to work on enhancing.
Okay so we have a job, a purpose, a goal and a mission in life.: To create a peaceful state in the mind. That needs to be our spiritual practice and our daily life practice if we want more inner peace and more peace in the world.
Removing What we Don't Want
We need to remove that state of mind that creates problems for us.
What part of the mind is that?
It is the ego part (well Singer never uses the word ego). It is the part of the mind that tells us that we are not enough and the only way to be enough is to build up a psyche based on what can be found out there. It is the part of us that says we are separate and alone in a dangerous world and the only way to survive is to build a protective fortress around ourselves, to defend and attack. It is the part that tells us that we are lacking and incomplete and the only way we will be ever "okay" is if make everything out there okay.
What do we experience when this problematic state is in charge?
Stress. We experience stress. We experience an never ending need to do, to fix, to control, to prevent. We experience anxiety and fear and if that is sustained over a period of time, we experience burn out and depression. We then experience darkness and a lack of energy flowing through us. Yuck! This is a state of mind we don't want, right? But what cause it?
The Problem With Resistance
We feel this inner sense of turmoil when we close our hearts to Life. Somewhere along the way we began to say no to certain parts of Life. Instead of allowing all Life events to just pass through us like clouds...we clung to some and we resisted others. When we resisted certain "events" we stuffed a lot of impressions and a lot of pain.
We now have all that energy whirling around inside us, creating turmoil, choking us off, and creating little space for the healing and life enhancing energy of Shakti to flow through.
The real problem with the mind then is its tendency to resist that which it decided it didn't want. It is not the life event that effects the mind and causes stress.... though we tend to point fingers of blame at what life throws our way. It is our tendency to assert our powerful will power against the life event that leads to stress.
We say "No" to certain events we think will make us uncomfortable or activate old pain. We refuse to allow them to pass through us. They enter our conscious awareness but they don't pass through. The energy of them gets stuck inside us.
Saying No to Past and Future
We tend to use this will to resist one of two things. We use it to resist that which already happened. We refuse to allow painful memories to pass through us because we did not want to deal with the pain when it first arose nor do we want to deal with it now. "I am saying no to the pain of rejection right now, because it will trigger some old childhood pain in me and I don't want that to come back up." It takes a great deal of mental energy to keep old pain down, keep your wounded areas protected and to push new pain away.
We also use our will to resist what might happen in the future. If you fear rejection you will always be hypervigilant and on guard to prevent it. You have to tell yourself all kinds of stories, make all kinds of rationalizations and excuses and put a lot of effort into trying to control yourself and the world around you so that you never experience the sting of rejection again. The mind just has to work overtime to do that.
The Fruitlessness of Resistance
We can resist until we are blue in the face, but we can never change the events. What happened in the past cannot be undone and what happens in the future we cannot control. Life is going to happen the way life happens. Life is going to do what Life does. Life is going to be Life. Our resistance of it is, not only draining and crazy making, but it is a fruitless effort.
I guarantee that no matter how hard you try ...that old rejection pain will resurface; no matter how hard you plot, scheme and manipulate...you will experience an event of rejection in the future. In fact, Life is going to throw rejection at you because it wants you to grow.
The only way to grow is not through resistance but through relaxing and releasing into your discomfort.
Deal With It!
Avoiding and resisting discomfort is not the answer to a peaceful Life. If you truly want to take the healing path, you must realize that truth.
You need to deal! Deal with what? You need to deal with whatever shows up in your moment. You need to deal with the beautiful flow of events that Life provides as a gift.
How?
First you need to accept what shows up before you. Life is not out "to get you." When Life offers you challenges it does so with an intention of helping you to grow and expand beyond your limiting comfort zones. Once you see this and accept this, then relax into it. Finally, release it. If you do not cling to it or struggle against it...the event and it's energy will pass through you, as it is meant to do.
Once your mind is clear of all your resistance, energy can flow. This energy will take you to a higher place, one that is not bogged down by stress. From there, you will simply have an event to deal with.
One should view their spiritual work as learning to live life without stress, problems, fear or melodrama. This path of using life to evolve spiritually is truly the highest path. There really is no reason for tension or problems. Stress only happens when you resist life's events. If you're neither pushing life away, nor pulling it toward you, then you are not creating resistance. You are simply present. In this state, you are just witnessing and experiencing the events of life taking place. If you chose to live this way, you will see that life can be lived in a state of peace. (Singer, page 149)
All is well.
Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger.
Dalai Lama
Good Ol' Dalai Lama echoes what is on my mind again. I open up to a calendar page from my desk calendar once again to find his words reflecting what we have been talking about.
There are parts of our old tired minds that are giving us grief. We need to learn to let those parts, that have a tendency to cling and resist, go. We also experience, from time to time, the peace and happiness that comes from an open, accepting and clear mind. That is the state we want to work on enhancing.
Okay so we have a job, a purpose, a goal and a mission in life.: To create a peaceful state in the mind. That needs to be our spiritual practice and our daily life practice if we want more inner peace and more peace in the world.
Removing What we Don't Want
We need to remove that state of mind that creates problems for us.
What part of the mind is that?
It is the ego part (well Singer never uses the word ego). It is the part of the mind that tells us that we are not enough and the only way to be enough is to build up a psyche based on what can be found out there. It is the part of us that says we are separate and alone in a dangerous world and the only way to survive is to build a protective fortress around ourselves, to defend and attack. It is the part that tells us that we are lacking and incomplete and the only way we will be ever "okay" is if make everything out there okay.
What do we experience when this problematic state is in charge?
Stress. We experience stress. We experience an never ending need to do, to fix, to control, to prevent. We experience anxiety and fear and if that is sustained over a period of time, we experience burn out and depression. We then experience darkness and a lack of energy flowing through us. Yuck! This is a state of mind we don't want, right? But what cause it?
The Problem With Resistance
We feel this inner sense of turmoil when we close our hearts to Life. Somewhere along the way we began to say no to certain parts of Life. Instead of allowing all Life events to just pass through us like clouds...we clung to some and we resisted others. When we resisted certain "events" we stuffed a lot of impressions and a lot of pain.
We now have all that energy whirling around inside us, creating turmoil, choking us off, and creating little space for the healing and life enhancing energy of Shakti to flow through.
The real problem with the mind then is its tendency to resist that which it decided it didn't want. It is not the life event that effects the mind and causes stress.... though we tend to point fingers of blame at what life throws our way. It is our tendency to assert our powerful will power against the life event that leads to stress.
We say "No" to certain events we think will make us uncomfortable or activate old pain. We refuse to allow them to pass through us. They enter our conscious awareness but they don't pass through. The energy of them gets stuck inside us.
Saying No to Past and Future
We tend to use this will to resist one of two things. We use it to resist that which already happened. We refuse to allow painful memories to pass through us because we did not want to deal with the pain when it first arose nor do we want to deal with it now. "I am saying no to the pain of rejection right now, because it will trigger some old childhood pain in me and I don't want that to come back up." It takes a great deal of mental energy to keep old pain down, keep your wounded areas protected and to push new pain away.
We also use our will to resist what might happen in the future. If you fear rejection you will always be hypervigilant and on guard to prevent it. You have to tell yourself all kinds of stories, make all kinds of rationalizations and excuses and put a lot of effort into trying to control yourself and the world around you so that you never experience the sting of rejection again. The mind just has to work overtime to do that.
The Fruitlessness of Resistance
We can resist until we are blue in the face, but we can never change the events. What happened in the past cannot be undone and what happens in the future we cannot control. Life is going to happen the way life happens. Life is going to do what Life does. Life is going to be Life. Our resistance of it is, not only draining and crazy making, but it is a fruitless effort.
I guarantee that no matter how hard you try ...that old rejection pain will resurface; no matter how hard you plot, scheme and manipulate...you will experience an event of rejection in the future. In fact, Life is going to throw rejection at you because it wants you to grow.
The only way to grow is not through resistance but through relaxing and releasing into your discomfort.
Deal With It!
Avoiding and resisting discomfort is not the answer to a peaceful Life. If you truly want to take the healing path, you must realize that truth.
You need to deal! Deal with what? You need to deal with whatever shows up in your moment. You need to deal with the beautiful flow of events that Life provides as a gift.
How?
First you need to accept what shows up before you. Life is not out "to get you." When Life offers you challenges it does so with an intention of helping you to grow and expand beyond your limiting comfort zones. Once you see this and accept this, then relax into it. Finally, release it. If you do not cling to it or struggle against it...the event and it's energy will pass through you, as it is meant to do.
Once your mind is clear of all your resistance, energy can flow. This energy will take you to a higher place, one that is not bogged down by stress. From there, you will simply have an event to deal with.
One should view their spiritual work as learning to live life without stress, problems, fear or melodrama. This path of using life to evolve spiritually is truly the highest path. There really is no reason for tension or problems. Stress only happens when you resist life's events. If you're neither pushing life away, nor pulling it toward you, then you are not creating resistance. You are simply present. In this state, you are just witnessing and experiencing the events of life taking place. If you chose to live this way, you will see that life can be lived in a state of peace. (Singer, page 149)
All is well.
Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger.
Sunday, May 26, 2019
What are We Defending? Bricks and Mortar or Mist and Vapour?
There is no need for false solidity when you are at peace with the universal expanse of your true Being.
Michael Singer, the untethered soul, page 137
Before I begin... I am going to, once again, strongly encourage you to read the untethered soul. It is a book like, The Power of Now and The New Earth, that can open you up when you are at least partially ready. I am spitting out a regurgitated form of it here on the page but I can not give you what Michael Singer's words can. Or at least I cannot give all that they have given me.
Let's Recap
You
So you (as your true Self, your conscious awareness, your spirit) are a timeless, eternal Being in a vast and empty space. (What the Buddhist call Shunyata). You are whole, complete, joy, peace, light and Love. You are connected to the One Source. You are nameless, timeless, formless and infinite. You are free.
This consciousness, that is you, forms the background of what we call life. You are that background. You are the clear blue sky over which clouds pass. You are that which observes, witnesses and places attention on each cloud that passes through you.
The Clouds
The clouds are formed by all the information picked up by your five senses from the outer world. They consist of all the sights, smells, tastes, sounds and sensations coming at you all the time. They are all the perceptions of events and happenings, the people and things in that world that is unfolding before you. They are your bodily sensations, your pleasures, your aches and pains. They are your interpretations of all the relationships you encounter. They are also your memories(impressions), your emotional reactions, and your thoughts.
It is important to remember that these clouds are just wisps of mist and vapour. They are not solid nor do they have any form or matter. They are clouds that are just meant to pass by the space that is you, as you, the Being who is peacefully watching.
The Mind
The problem is, these things are constantly passing, constantly moving, constantly changing. Where on earth (or in heaven :)) do we focus our attention then?
The mind is called in. It is a tool used by this vast consciousness that we have given the job of cloud- control to. It is the thing we tell to make sense of all this input. We tell it, not only to make sense of it, but to sort it all out and file it all away with distinct categories and labels.
According to Patanjali there are different levels to the mind or Citta. There is the basic mind or ahamkara which Buddhists and Eckhart Tolle refer to as the ego or little "me". Then there is the intellect or that sorting part of the mind that has to discriminate and make distinctions between the different clouds. This is called the Buddhi. And there is mana, that part of the mind that gets attracted to certain clouds based on how close, how pretty, how noisy or desirable they are. It is the wanting part of the mind. (Satchidananda, page4)
So the mind, with its three active levels, sits in that space of our consciousness watching the clouds but it can't do so very peacefully.
Whereas the pure sense of awareness, that is us, just witnesses and watches all without judgment...the mind believes it must decide which clouds to focus on and which ones to tune out. It has to decide which ones "are good" and which ones "are bad". It must decipher which ones to "chase after" and which one to "chase away". It must make judgments, preferences and discriminations. It feels it must judge, label and name.
What makes things seem less chaotic? What offers some sense of stability or protection? What jumps in and demands to be seen? ? The mind will decide.
The Problem
The mind will try to select things that it determines as preferable in creating and making sense of this input and it will focus on that. But it will also get distracted by the noisiest and most determined to be seen clouds.
As clouds pass by, all attention will go to the selected few and we will place all our vast powers of concentration, then, on this "thing", this "feeling" or idea. Sometimes at great cost.
It is a very big job for a little mind. There is just so much coming in and going out. There is just so much the mind has to do and so much stuff to sort through.
But you keep holding onto them, as if consistency can substitute for stability. (Michael Singer).
That is where the 'problem" arises.
Clinging
This act of holding onto certain impressions is what the Buddhist refer to as "clinging". When we intensely fix our attention on things, be they actual objects or feelings, thought and impressions...we may actually narrow our concentration so much that we, who we really are, gets lost in the experience. We get lost in the clouds and forget the sky on which those clouds are floating.
We will hold onto this focus with all our might (as if we could when it really is nothing more than vapour and mist). We will see the inner things as solid...something that defines our world and us, something that we can use to create a sense of self with and we will cling.
We may mistaken the objects we are focusing on for being us. You seem to have lost your original identity and have identified with your thoughts and body. (Satchidananda, page 7) We forget that we are the One watching, not what is watched. We identify with the things, the feelings and the thoughts.
This clinging can make our minds a little crazy. Running after objects of craving can do a lot of damage to our body and mind. (Thich Nhat Hanh, page 72).
The mind, as sick as it is, will eventually build our psyches around these objects we cling to. So how on earth can we be sane when we are building ourselves on vapour and mist ?
Building Blocks
As we move away from the calm space that is us; as we get more and more lost and disorientated in the foregrounds of our lives we may become unsettled and afraid. Everything is whirling around us so fast, it makes us dizzy.We may seek security, stability and a sense of relationship with the world outside us and the world in our minds. The psyche is built.
We will use the things we have focused on and were clinging to as building blocks. We will take our few selected clouds and we will build a protective fortress around our emerging sense of self.. We will build a world that makes some sense to our basic ego minds. From here we will create more thoughts that tie all the mismatch of selected perceptions, thoughts, feeling and impressions together. If it makes sense we will build our whole sense of self around it. Our clouds will seem to take on the form of a protective fortress, one we will defend at all costs.
This fortress we are building identifies us...every brick in it is something we cling to. And as the clouds keep passing by, the mind selects those clouds that fit in the picture we created of ourselves and it resists, struggles against or fights off the rest. Society will step in , every now and again, to admire what we built which will encourage us to go on building in the same way or it may reject what we have created, in which case we may feel a need to change the architecture.
The Walls
But in truth we are struggling with the clinging and struggling with the building. This is what 'suffering' is. It is exhausting. We also find that walls of our mental fortress still get knocked down by the outside world and we are sometimes pushed against them from the inside. To be near a wall, especially if it has already been torn down or feels like it might be, is terrifying. We want to retreat back away from it and hide in our little concept of self.
But the thing is...exactly where we feel fear and discomfort is where we must go. We put so much energy into defending these walls when what we really want is beyond them.
If we would be willing to feel a bit of pain and discomfort, some fear and lean up against those walls amazing things would happen. We would realize that they were never solid...they never protected us and they never had to. They were just mist and vapour from passing clouds we cling to. If let them go, we will be wall less ( well we already are) but we will realize we are wall less. We will fall back into that vastness, that infinite empty space that is us. We will remember that we are and always were the sky and not the clouds. They will continue to pass us by as we simply watch and we will be free.
Let's stop defending that which isn't worth defending.
All is well.
References
Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger.
Sri Swami Satchidananda (2011) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Integral Yoga Publications
Thich Nhat Hanh (20011) peace is every breath. Harper One
Michael Singer, the untethered soul, page 137
Before I begin... I am going to, once again, strongly encourage you to read the untethered soul. It is a book like, The Power of Now and The New Earth, that can open you up when you are at least partially ready. I am spitting out a regurgitated form of it here on the page but I can not give you what Michael Singer's words can. Or at least I cannot give all that they have given me.
Let's Recap
You
So you (as your true Self, your conscious awareness, your spirit) are a timeless, eternal Being in a vast and empty space. (What the Buddhist call Shunyata). You are whole, complete, joy, peace, light and Love. You are connected to the One Source. You are nameless, timeless, formless and infinite. You are free.
This consciousness, that is you, forms the background of what we call life. You are that background. You are the clear blue sky over which clouds pass. You are that which observes, witnesses and places attention on each cloud that passes through you.
The Clouds
The clouds are formed by all the information picked up by your five senses from the outer world. They consist of all the sights, smells, tastes, sounds and sensations coming at you all the time. They are all the perceptions of events and happenings, the people and things in that world that is unfolding before you. They are your bodily sensations, your pleasures, your aches and pains. They are your interpretations of all the relationships you encounter. They are also your memories(impressions), your emotional reactions, and your thoughts.
It is important to remember that these clouds are just wisps of mist and vapour. They are not solid nor do they have any form or matter. They are clouds that are just meant to pass by the space that is you, as you, the Being who is peacefully watching.
The Mind
The problem is, these things are constantly passing, constantly moving, constantly changing. Where on earth (or in heaven :)) do we focus our attention then?
The mind is called in. It is a tool used by this vast consciousness that we have given the job of cloud- control to. It is the thing we tell to make sense of all this input. We tell it, not only to make sense of it, but to sort it all out and file it all away with distinct categories and labels.
According to Patanjali there are different levels to the mind or Citta. There is the basic mind or ahamkara which Buddhists and Eckhart Tolle refer to as the ego or little "me". Then there is the intellect or that sorting part of the mind that has to discriminate and make distinctions between the different clouds. This is called the Buddhi. And there is mana, that part of the mind that gets attracted to certain clouds based on how close, how pretty, how noisy or desirable they are. It is the wanting part of the mind. (Satchidananda, page4)
So the mind, with its three active levels, sits in that space of our consciousness watching the clouds but it can't do so very peacefully.
Whereas the pure sense of awareness, that is us, just witnesses and watches all without judgment...the mind believes it must decide which clouds to focus on and which ones to tune out. It has to decide which ones "are good" and which ones "are bad". It must decipher which ones to "chase after" and which one to "chase away". It must make judgments, preferences and discriminations. It feels it must judge, label and name.
What makes things seem less chaotic? What offers some sense of stability or protection? What jumps in and demands to be seen? ? The mind will decide.
The Problem
The mind will try to select things that it determines as preferable in creating and making sense of this input and it will focus on that. But it will also get distracted by the noisiest and most determined to be seen clouds.
As clouds pass by, all attention will go to the selected few and we will place all our vast powers of concentration, then, on this "thing", this "feeling" or idea. Sometimes at great cost.
It is a very big job for a little mind. There is just so much coming in and going out. There is just so much the mind has to do and so much stuff to sort through.
But you keep holding onto them, as if consistency can substitute for stability. (Michael Singer).
That is where the 'problem" arises.
Clinging
This act of holding onto certain impressions is what the Buddhist refer to as "clinging". When we intensely fix our attention on things, be they actual objects or feelings, thought and impressions...we may actually narrow our concentration so much that we, who we really are, gets lost in the experience. We get lost in the clouds and forget the sky on which those clouds are floating.
We will hold onto this focus with all our might (as if we could when it really is nothing more than vapour and mist). We will see the inner things as solid...something that defines our world and us, something that we can use to create a sense of self with and we will cling.
We may mistaken the objects we are focusing on for being us. You seem to have lost your original identity and have identified with your thoughts and body. (Satchidananda, page 7) We forget that we are the One watching, not what is watched. We identify with the things, the feelings and the thoughts.
You are not your thoughts; you are aware of your thoughts.
You are not your emotions; you feel your emotions. you are not your body; you look at it in a mirror and experience this world through its eyes and ears.
You are the conscious being who is aware of all these inner and outer things.
This clinging can make our minds a little crazy. Running after objects of craving can do a lot of damage to our body and mind. (Thich Nhat Hanh, page 72).
The mind, as sick as it is, will eventually build our psyches around these objects we cling to. So how on earth can we be sane when we are building ourselves on vapour and mist ?
Building Blocks
As we move away from the calm space that is us; as we get more and more lost and disorientated in the foregrounds of our lives we may become unsettled and afraid. Everything is whirling around us so fast, it makes us dizzy.We may seek security, stability and a sense of relationship with the world outside us and the world in our minds. The psyche is built.
We will use the things we have focused on and were clinging to as building blocks. We will take our few selected clouds and we will build a protective fortress around our emerging sense of self.. We will build a world that makes some sense to our basic ego minds. From here we will create more thoughts that tie all the mismatch of selected perceptions, thoughts, feeling and impressions together. If it makes sense we will build our whole sense of self around it. Our clouds will seem to take on the form of a protective fortress, one we will defend at all costs.
This fortress we are building identifies us...every brick in it is something we cling to. And as the clouds keep passing by, the mind selects those clouds that fit in the picture we created of ourselves and it resists, struggles against or fights off the rest. Society will step in , every now and again, to admire what we built which will encourage us to go on building in the same way or it may reject what we have created, in which case we may feel a need to change the architecture.
The Walls
But in truth we are struggling with the clinging and struggling with the building. This is what 'suffering' is. It is exhausting. We also find that walls of our mental fortress still get knocked down by the outside world and we are sometimes pushed against them from the inside. To be near a wall, especially if it has already been torn down or feels like it might be, is terrifying. We want to retreat back away from it and hide in our little concept of self.
But the thing is...exactly where we feel fear and discomfort is where we must go. We put so much energy into defending these walls when what we really want is beyond them.
If we would be willing to feel a bit of pain and discomfort, some fear and lean up against those walls amazing things would happen. We would realize that they were never solid...they never protected us and they never had to. They were just mist and vapour from passing clouds we cling to. If let them go, we will be wall less ( well we already are) but we will realize we are wall less. We will fall back into that vastness, that infinite empty space that is us. We will remember that we are and always were the sky and not the clouds. They will continue to pass us by as we simply watch and we will be free.
Let's stop defending that which isn't worth defending.
All is well.
References
Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger.
Sri Swami Satchidananda (2011) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Integral Yoga Publications
Thich Nhat Hanh (20011) peace is every breath. Harper One
Saturday, May 25, 2019
Up Agianst the Wall
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.
Neale Donald Walsh
If you have ever been thrown or accidentally bumped against the walls of your comfort zone you more than likely felt it. It may have felt like a painful bang or the sting of a stubbed toe, but you tend to know when you have reached the edge.
Discomfort is usually a sign that we are close and fear is a definite sign that we are up against the wall. We will feel it in our bodies. We may tremble, our hearts may beat faster and we may actually feel physical discomfort or pain. We will feel it in our emotional hearts: a sense of dread or anxiety. We may feel it in our minds as the thoughts about all the fear inducing possibilities beyond the walls start bouncing through our heads. We will feel uncomfortable.
We are so locked into, so covered up and protected in the safe cocoons we created around ourselves, that we forget that the world outside is a pretty cool place to live and that we actually have a set of wings hiding in amongst the flesh on our backs(not literally :)). For the sake of safety, we do not even let our minds go there. Instead, we make our prisons into nice, warm, comfortable, little nests we do not want to leave. We convince ourselves that what we have inside the self induced confinement is all we need...and everything beyond the walls is dangerous and unwanted.
Why did we get ourselves believing such nonsense? That is too long of a story to answer here but the fact remains...many of us, if not most of us, seek the safety of our comfort zones and fear what is beyond them. So much so that when we get to the edge, we instinctively draw back like we touched a hand to a burning flame. We physically, mentally and/or emotionally withdraw. We patch up any holes in the wall and retreat back into the recesses of safety.
Safety however is a tiny limited and finite space to live in. It is a place that can trap us and imprison us.
Here we are, beings with wings ( metaphorically lol) that are meant to open, span and carry us through the infinite space out there[or more correctly 'in here']. But we have confined ourselves, so much so, that the feathers of our wings are not even able to flitter...let alone fly.
We need to stop avoiding our walls. Despite how uncomfortable it is, we need to learn to walk towards the edges of our comfort zones. We do not have to run; we do not have to be thrown nor do we have to blindly stub our toes. We just take one step at a time toward the wall we fear.
When we feel discomfort instead of retreating, we need to learn to relax into it knowing that even though it is uncomfortable the tender spot is leading us to freedom. The discomfort and the fear are gentle nudges toward the 'more' that Life wants us to have.
Don't be afraid to be up against a wall. Lean and relax into. When you are ready, push a little bit. A door will open. You will be free.
All is well
.
Neale Donald Walsh
If you have ever been thrown or accidentally bumped against the walls of your comfort zone you more than likely felt it. It may have felt like a painful bang or the sting of a stubbed toe, but you tend to know when you have reached the edge.
Discomfort is usually a sign that we are close and fear is a definite sign that we are up against the wall. We will feel it in our bodies. We may tremble, our hearts may beat faster and we may actually feel physical discomfort or pain. We will feel it in our emotional hearts: a sense of dread or anxiety. We may feel it in our minds as the thoughts about all the fear inducing possibilities beyond the walls start bouncing through our heads. We will feel uncomfortable.
We are so locked into, so covered up and protected in the safe cocoons we created around ourselves, that we forget that the world outside is a pretty cool place to live and that we actually have a set of wings hiding in amongst the flesh on our backs(not literally :)). For the sake of safety, we do not even let our minds go there. Instead, we make our prisons into nice, warm, comfortable, little nests we do not want to leave. We convince ourselves that what we have inside the self induced confinement is all we need...and everything beyond the walls is dangerous and unwanted.
Why did we get ourselves believing such nonsense? That is too long of a story to answer here but the fact remains...many of us, if not most of us, seek the safety of our comfort zones and fear what is beyond them. So much so that when we get to the edge, we instinctively draw back like we touched a hand to a burning flame. We physically, mentally and/or emotionally withdraw. We patch up any holes in the wall and retreat back into the recesses of safety.
Safety however is a tiny limited and finite space to live in. It is a place that can trap us and imprison us.
Here we are, beings with wings ( metaphorically lol) that are meant to open, span and carry us through the infinite space out there[or more correctly 'in here']. But we have confined ourselves, so much so, that the feathers of our wings are not even able to flitter...let alone fly.
We need to stop avoiding our walls. Despite how uncomfortable it is, we need to learn to walk towards the edges of our comfort zones. We do not have to run; we do not have to be thrown nor do we have to blindly stub our toes. We just take one step at a time toward the wall we fear.
When we feel discomfort instead of retreating, we need to learn to relax into it knowing that even though it is uncomfortable the tender spot is leading us to freedom. The discomfort and the fear are gentle nudges toward the 'more' that Life wants us to have.
Don't be afraid to be up against a wall. Lean and relax into. When you are ready, push a little bit. A door will open. You will be free.
All is well
.
Friday, May 24, 2019
Oh the Games We Play
What you'll see is that your mind is always telling you that you have to change something outside in order to solve your inner problems. But if you are wise, you won't play this game.
Michael Singer, the untethered soul, page 92
Most of us are playing a game with our minds and with our lives. We are constantly moving chess pieces across some checkered board on which we choose to live. We are attempting to manipulate, control, overcome and outsmart external world things so we feel "okay"inside.
You see we gave the mind a very humongous and unrealistic responsibility . We told it to figure out a way to make everything "out there" okay so we can feel okay "in here," We told it to show us how to make everyone like us, to make us perfect, and beautiful, to make all events out there go the way we think they should, to make the weather absolutely wonderful, to make that guy fall in love with us and never leave us, to ensure that she or anyone else never hurts us etc etc. We told it to protect us from the big bad things in life and to create a world that will give us everything we want.
The mind is just trying to do what we told it to do. It is telling us how we should be in order to get what we want, and how we should not be. It is telling us who to love and who to stay away from. It is telling us where to go and where to not go. It is telling us what is safe and what is not safe...what will make us feel bad and what might make us feel good. It is telling us what to go after, what to own, what to call ourselves in order to make it alright. It is also telling us what to avoid, when to close up and when to run which is much too often. It is basically telling us what move to make next. And we are listening.
The problem is the mind cannot do what we ask it to do. It is impossible task and it has gone a little "cuckoo" in an attempt to appease us. It won't admit that it can't do it but we just have to have a good look at how it is behaving to know our impossible request has driven it a little mad. Besides we have to realize, after so many years on this planet, that it can't make us happy. Happiness is not out there but peace, joy, love are "in here "beyond the mind games we are playing with ourselves.
We have been playing a game nobody wins. It is only when we stop listening to the mind's crazy directions and turn inward will we realize that we were playing a game that really wasn't that much fun. Life isn't about controlling, manipulating or out maneuvering the world around us...it is about finding who we really are and simply being in that.
Time to put the pieces down, don't you think?
All is well.
Singer, Michael (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger
Michael Singer, the untethered soul, page 92
Most of us are playing a game with our minds and with our lives. We are constantly moving chess pieces across some checkered board on which we choose to live. We are attempting to manipulate, control, overcome and outsmart external world things so we feel "okay"inside.
You see we gave the mind a very humongous and unrealistic responsibility . We told it to figure out a way to make everything "out there" okay so we can feel okay "in here," We told it to show us how to make everyone like us, to make us perfect, and beautiful, to make all events out there go the way we think they should, to make the weather absolutely wonderful, to make that guy fall in love with us and never leave us, to ensure that she or anyone else never hurts us etc etc. We told it to protect us from the big bad things in life and to create a world that will give us everything we want.
The mind is just trying to do what we told it to do. It is telling us how we should be in order to get what we want, and how we should not be. It is telling us who to love and who to stay away from. It is telling us where to go and where to not go. It is telling us what is safe and what is not safe...what will make us feel bad and what might make us feel good. It is telling us what to go after, what to own, what to call ourselves in order to make it alright. It is also telling us what to avoid, when to close up and when to run which is much too often. It is basically telling us what move to make next. And we are listening.
The problem is the mind cannot do what we ask it to do. It is impossible task and it has gone a little "cuckoo" in an attempt to appease us. It won't admit that it can't do it but we just have to have a good look at how it is behaving to know our impossible request has driven it a little mad. Besides we have to realize, after so many years on this planet, that it can't make us happy. Happiness is not out there but peace, joy, love are "in here "beyond the mind games we are playing with ourselves.
We have been playing a game nobody wins. It is only when we stop listening to the mind's crazy directions and turn inward will we realize that we were playing a game that really wasn't that much fun. Life isn't about controlling, manipulating or out maneuvering the world around us...it is about finding who we really are and simply being in that.
Time to put the pieces down, don't you think?
All is well.
Singer, Michael (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Stop Protecting the Unwanted
No matter what events take place in life, it is always better to let go rather than close.
Michael singer
So I am on this kick about opening the heart and freeing it from the blockages that keep us from experiencing life in the full and joyful way we are meant to. I am rereading the untethered soul by Michael Singer, The Yoga sutras of Patanjali and felt compelled yesterday to buy and start reading Charge and the Energy Body by Anodea Justice.
Wow! So much learning that specifically applies to my own personal experience and the experience of so many others. I think this learning came to me when it did because I am finally willing to stop suffering. I am willing to stop closing. I am willing to open up to the energy that is in all of us.
Sensitive Thorns
I have a lot of blockages, a lot of sensitivities and a lot of "thorns" inside me that have to be dealt with. Maybe you have some too? The blockages keep getting triggered because they are so "sensitive" and they keep bumping up against each other creating more mental suffering than is necessary. Someone says something to us in a critical tone and childhood pain that was stuffed so deeply inside comes up. We don't like that so we go out of our way to avoid criticism. We put great effort into deciding who is safe to be around and who isn't. We hide the real self away from those we think will judge us. We work on creating a persona that is perfect...that has nothing in it that can be criticized by anyone. We spend our whole life's avoiding criticism because it triggers us. How unrealistic and draining is that?
Preventing the Sting
I realize I have spent most of my life wasting valuable and precious energy in trying to prevent these sensitive areas from being bumped, or triggered, and stimulated. I tried to control and manipulate all the things, experiences and people around me to avoid the sting of such an encounter.
One small example:
I never felt "safe" in a car when I was the one driving. From the very beginning, it triggered a deeply rooted and childhood belief in me that I wasn't capable enough to protect myself and other people from the unsafe world out there. On top of that, I had a major accident within a few months of getting my license. It was very traumatic for me but instead of dealing with it, I stuffed that too.
I never let that originating experience, that got me believing I wasn't capable and that the world was unsafe in the first place, go; I didn't let the trauma of the accident go because I couldn't let the childhood experience go so I had vortex of these experiences spinning around inside me. They keep bumping up against each other creating a form of driving anxiety, and subsequently prolonged and unnecessary pain and suffering whenever I thought of driving.
Triggered Fear
I still drive but even the thought of having to drive somewhere in a future situation will trigger this sensitivity in me, reminding me of the accident and reminding me of my belief that I am not capable. Fear wants to come up but I have learned to fear fear. My mind jumps in and does whatever it can to protect itself, the little me, from this experience of fear.
First it will try to find ways for me to avoid the driving..."maybe someone else will drive me, maybe I can cancel my appointment or make an excuse why I can't drive that person there". If that fails, it will plan my driving route sometimes days in advance. "Well if I go at this time of the day around this street it won't be so busy. There will be less chance of an accident. If I go there...then there and there even if it is an extra fifteen minutes, I will avoid all left hand turns [which for some reason really trigger this sensitivity in me]."
If I can't find away out...I will give myself a lecture about the importance of not avoiding anxiety provoking situations. I will very reluctantly agree to face my fear, breathe deep and crawl into the car. I always contract a bit when I get behind the wheel. I have the experience of anxiety and fear. My chest will come forward and my shoulders will tense up. My heart will beat a little faster and my hands will cling the wheel a little too tightly. I am like a gazelle on the Serengeti who realizes she has been spotted by a hungry lion. I will feel fear really, really wanting to be expressed. But I block that with a head full of thinking. My mind will chastise me for it, "What is wrong with you? You are 50 + and acting like someone in high school taking driving lessons. Smarten up." Self shaming and anger is a way of avoiding the fear.
When I finally get home I will feel tremendously relieved, like I survived a battle on the front lines and I will feel just as drained. Trying to suppress my fear and avoid driving triggers is absolutely exhausting.
Removing the Thorn?
This is just one of my many thorns. No wonder why I am drained and why my heart is acting up now.
Michael Singer describes this experience in Chapter Seven as akin to having a thorn in your arm. He describes it so eloquently that I want you to read it for yourself. I want you to read the untethered soul because my explanation of it can never do it justice.
Anyway...many of us do that don't we? Instead of removing or releasing the source of discomfort we put great energy into trying to manipulate and control the world around us as to prevent our tender spots from being triggered. When all we really had to do was let the darn thing go.
The problem is I identify with the driving fear and all the other thorns I have. I see it as a very unacceptable part of who I am. I stuff it and stuff it and stuff it. I put great energy and effort into avoiding it...to the point of it being absolutely exhausting when all I have to do is pull out the darn thorn. That would be so much easier.
How to stop the pain
So how do we do that anyway? Michael Singer offers some ways we can do this:
Singer, Michael. (2007) teh untethered soul. New Harbinger
Michael singer
So I am on this kick about opening the heart and freeing it from the blockages that keep us from experiencing life in the full and joyful way we are meant to. I am rereading the untethered soul by Michael Singer, The Yoga sutras of Patanjali and felt compelled yesterday to buy and start reading Charge and the Energy Body by Anodea Justice.
Wow! So much learning that specifically applies to my own personal experience and the experience of so many others. I think this learning came to me when it did because I am finally willing to stop suffering. I am willing to stop closing. I am willing to open up to the energy that is in all of us.
Sensitive Thorns
I have a lot of blockages, a lot of sensitivities and a lot of "thorns" inside me that have to be dealt with. Maybe you have some too? The blockages keep getting triggered because they are so "sensitive" and they keep bumping up against each other creating more mental suffering than is necessary. Someone says something to us in a critical tone and childhood pain that was stuffed so deeply inside comes up. We don't like that so we go out of our way to avoid criticism. We put great effort into deciding who is safe to be around and who isn't. We hide the real self away from those we think will judge us. We work on creating a persona that is perfect...that has nothing in it that can be criticized by anyone. We spend our whole life's avoiding criticism because it triggers us. How unrealistic and draining is that?
Preventing the Sting
I realize I have spent most of my life wasting valuable and precious energy in trying to prevent these sensitive areas from being bumped, or triggered, and stimulated. I tried to control and manipulate all the things, experiences and people around me to avoid the sting of such an encounter.
One small example:
I never felt "safe" in a car when I was the one driving. From the very beginning, it triggered a deeply rooted and childhood belief in me that I wasn't capable enough to protect myself and other people from the unsafe world out there. On top of that, I had a major accident within a few months of getting my license. It was very traumatic for me but instead of dealing with it, I stuffed that too.
I never let that originating experience, that got me believing I wasn't capable and that the world was unsafe in the first place, go; I didn't let the trauma of the accident go because I couldn't let the childhood experience go so I had vortex of these experiences spinning around inside me. They keep bumping up against each other creating a form of driving anxiety, and subsequently prolonged and unnecessary pain and suffering whenever I thought of driving.
Triggered Fear
I still drive but even the thought of having to drive somewhere in a future situation will trigger this sensitivity in me, reminding me of the accident and reminding me of my belief that I am not capable. Fear wants to come up but I have learned to fear fear. My mind jumps in and does whatever it can to protect itself, the little me, from this experience of fear.
First it will try to find ways for me to avoid the driving..."maybe someone else will drive me, maybe I can cancel my appointment or make an excuse why I can't drive that person there". If that fails, it will plan my driving route sometimes days in advance. "Well if I go at this time of the day around this street it won't be so busy. There will be less chance of an accident. If I go there...then there and there even if it is an extra fifteen minutes, I will avoid all left hand turns [which for some reason really trigger this sensitivity in me]."
If I can't find away out...I will give myself a lecture about the importance of not avoiding anxiety provoking situations. I will very reluctantly agree to face my fear, breathe deep and crawl into the car. I always contract a bit when I get behind the wheel. I have the experience of anxiety and fear. My chest will come forward and my shoulders will tense up. My heart will beat a little faster and my hands will cling the wheel a little too tightly. I am like a gazelle on the Serengeti who realizes she has been spotted by a hungry lion. I will feel fear really, really wanting to be expressed. But I block that with a head full of thinking. My mind will chastise me for it, "What is wrong with you? You are 50 + and acting like someone in high school taking driving lessons. Smarten up." Self shaming and anger is a way of avoiding the fear.
When I finally get home I will feel tremendously relieved, like I survived a battle on the front lines and I will feel just as drained. Trying to suppress my fear and avoid driving triggers is absolutely exhausting.
Removing the Thorn?
This is just one of my many thorns. No wonder why I am drained and why my heart is acting up now.
Michael Singer describes this experience in Chapter Seven as akin to having a thorn in your arm. He describes it so eloquently that I want you to read it for yourself. I want you to read the untethered soul because my explanation of it can never do it justice.
Anyway...many of us do that don't we? Instead of removing or releasing the source of discomfort we put great energy into trying to manipulate and control the world around us as to prevent our tender spots from being triggered. When all we really had to do was let the darn thing go.
The problem is I identify with the driving fear and all the other thorns I have. I see it as a very unacceptable part of who I am. I stuff it and stuff it and stuff it. I put great energy and effort into avoiding it...to the point of it being absolutely exhausting when all I have to do is pull out the darn thorn. That would be so much easier.
How to stop the pain
So how do we do that anyway? Michael Singer offers some ways we can do this:
- Accept that you have something inside you that needs to be dealt with
- Open your eyes and see the tendency to protect and defend this broken little self.
- Notice how much effort and work it takes to protect and defend this thing from being triggered
- Know there is an alternative to this draining suffering: you just have to be conscious enough to watch that part of yourself that is constantly closing and trying to protect itself
- Decide not to do that anymore. Know that what you are working so hard to protect is not something you want. I don't want my driving fear. I don't want the belief that I am not capable of being safe. I don't want fear at all. So why on earth do I work so hard to protect it? If you don't really want it than don't protect it.
- Allow whatever needs to be felt, to be felt. Pain, anxiety, loneliness, rejection are really not problems in themselves. The problem lies in what we do with those things.
- Then go about your business and be there with whatever Life hands you instead of putting all you have into this personal sensitivity.
- Practice continually with all potential triggers : The moment you see the energy getting imbalanced inside, the moment you see the heart starting to tense and get defensive, you just stop.
- Don't fight or struggle against the mind or these thoughts, emotions or currents of unwanted energy. See them for what they are.
- Know that the thought, the feeling and the energy you have been trying so hard to stuff or run from, isn't you. It is just an object the "you" is watching.
- Let go and fall behind it where the real energy that matters is. Where you are watching.
- Relax and release.
- Enjoy your freedom
Singer, Michael. (2007) teh untethered soul. New Harbinger
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Releasing and Cleansing Samskaras.
So you have a choice: do you want to try to change the world so it doesn't disturb your samskaras, or are you willing to go through this process of purification? ... Once you sit deeply enough inside to stop fighting the stored energy patterns, they'll come up constantly and pass right through you. ... your heart will become accustomed to the process of releasing and cleansing...Stay centered behind them and let go.
-Michal Singer , from the untethered soul, page 57
Learning about Shakti , Samskara, Blockages and Healing
I am well into my third reading/studying of the untethered soul, which is proving to be one of those life altering books for me. I somehow see keys to my healing in it.
Upon reading chapter five and six again, which speak to the idea of infinite energy and the heart as the center of that energy, I find myself in a profound "aha" moment. I feel compelled to know more about the heart chakra, the chakras in general and about Shakti...this infinite energy that is constantly flowing through us. I realize that I am so often closing up to it, blocking its flow so I do not live in that state of peaceful, joyful acceptance of life.
Why am I closing? I am closing, like many of us do, because of some trapped memories within me. These trapped memories or what Patanjali referred to as impressions or Samskaras...are trapped energy that block and prevent the energy of life from flowing through.
Shakti: the Natural Flow of Joy
Singer teaches in the simple and profound way he does that we are meant to be feeling good: joyful, enthusiastic, and loving. This current of energy is constantly flowing through us and it isn't dependent on the food we eat or the amount of caffeine we put into our bodies. It is deeper and much greater than the energies we use to power our bodies, vehicles and homes with. It is a constant never ending flow. Yet we don't always feel it because sometimes we close our minds and more importantly our hearts to it.
Experiencing Internal, Infinite Energy
The internal energy of Shakti (we can call it Chi, spirit energy, life energy etc) can be felt when something happens that excites us. Say we are feeling down in the dumps, unwell, exhausted, drained and we suddenly meet the person of our dreams, win the lottery or get a call that we got the job we just applied for. All of a sudden we feel excited, enthused and on top of the world. We experience a dramatic shift in that energy upward.
The energy burst didn't come with the person, the win or the job...we just suddenly opened up to life. We said yes to life and the Shakti then just surged through us. What a wonderful feeling, right? We want to keep that feeling all the time but the problem is many of us don't.
Why don't we always feel it if we are meant to?
Sometimes we open up to life and experience it the way it is meant to be for us but too often we also close off the valve that allows the Shakti to flow through. When it doesn't flow through it leads to a blockage of energy that prevents other things from flowing through. Instead of experiencing the light, joy and love of life...we may then end up feeling the darkness, the sadness and the dissatisfaction with life that a blocked energy center will cause. Yuck. Depression is often a result of blocked energy.
There are a few things happening here that lead us to close. The first is that we are mistakenly assuming that the things in the outside world are completely responsible for what is going on inside of us. They may trigger an opening or a closing but they aren't responsible. Our minds are the things that determine if we are open or closed to life and therefore open and closed to the flow.
What is going on in the mind that closes us?
What causes us to close is a clinging and/or a resistance to life experiences that become impressions, memories or Samskara. Instead of accepting and experiencing life in the natural way by observing with our senses, experiencing fleeting thoughts and feelings without judgment and then releasing them, the mind may decide to cling to or refuse to deal with certain experiences. These experiences become impressions. We do not allow them to flow through us. They then leave an impression on us and are stored somewhere in our hearts.
We may cling to memories of good times we do not want to release and resist the not so great memories that we do not want to have to deal with. Mental clinging and resistance are the plague builders in the vessels that Shakti flow through. They close us off.
A Desire to Resist Pain and Cling to the Comfortable
All energy is meant to flow through us. All life experiences are meant to flow through us naturally and easily, bringing joy, peace and love as they do, regardless of what is actually happening on the outside. The mind sometimes gets in the way of that flow. When life happens as it does, we may "perceive" pain in a given experience. Something in the mind that wants to keep it stable and protected resists the painful or uncomfortable experience. We exert energy into pushing it aside or in most cases down through repression and suppression.
Pain Gets Stored Away; It Doesn't go Away
The pain may go out of sight but it doesn't go away. It gets stored somewhere and that place is usually in the heart: the seat of our emotions. Our resistance to life in that moment then leads to a blockage of energy. We don't experience Shakti because it is prevented from flowing through us. All because we said" no" to life in a given moment. As long as we have those Samskaras stuck inside us, this energy can not flow in the way it was meant to.
So we have these painful memories within our heart and consciously we may not be aware of them. We stuffed them away out of sight. But what happens when something triggers that memory? Like a smell, an image, a verbal reminder? The energy that is stored away comes up suddenly and it wants to be experienced. It wants to be expressed. It wants to be released. But what does the mind do?
Triggered Samskara
Feeling the inklings of remembered discomfort, the mind stuffs down the impression again and at the same time pushes aside the moment life is giving us as a gift. We say no to the pain. We say no to that moment. We say no to life and we close. All energy then goes into resisting instead of accepting and allowing the flow to work its way through us. We are once again closing off the Shakti because we are closing our heart .
Too many of us refuse to experience the pain even if it is only trapped in a memory, a mental modification, a thought. We refuse to release and therefore shut out the potential for healing and the potential for the joy, light and love that is waiting for us.
We did this to us. Life didn't!
So what do we do with these trapped Samskaras, if we truly want to heal?
References
Sri Swami Satchidananda (2011) The Yoga sutras of Patanjali. Yogaville: Integral Yoga Publications
Michael Singer. (2007) the untethered soul . Oakland: New Harbinger
-Michal Singer , from the untethered soul, page 57
Learning about Shakti , Samskara, Blockages and Healing
I am well into my third reading/studying of the untethered soul, which is proving to be one of those life altering books for me. I somehow see keys to my healing in it.
Upon reading chapter five and six again, which speak to the idea of infinite energy and the heart as the center of that energy, I find myself in a profound "aha" moment. I feel compelled to know more about the heart chakra, the chakras in general and about Shakti...this infinite energy that is constantly flowing through us. I realize that I am so often closing up to it, blocking its flow so I do not live in that state of peaceful, joyful acceptance of life.
Why am I closing? I am closing, like many of us do, because of some trapped memories within me. These trapped memories or what Patanjali referred to as impressions or Samskaras...are trapped energy that block and prevent the energy of life from flowing through.
Shakti: the Natural Flow of Joy
Singer teaches in the simple and profound way he does that we are meant to be feeling good: joyful, enthusiastic, and loving. This current of energy is constantly flowing through us and it isn't dependent on the food we eat or the amount of caffeine we put into our bodies. It is deeper and much greater than the energies we use to power our bodies, vehicles and homes with. It is a constant never ending flow. Yet we don't always feel it because sometimes we close our minds and more importantly our hearts to it.
Experiencing Internal, Infinite Energy
The internal energy of Shakti (we can call it Chi, spirit energy, life energy etc) can be felt when something happens that excites us. Say we are feeling down in the dumps, unwell, exhausted, drained and we suddenly meet the person of our dreams, win the lottery or get a call that we got the job we just applied for. All of a sudden we feel excited, enthused and on top of the world. We experience a dramatic shift in that energy upward.
The energy burst didn't come with the person, the win or the job...we just suddenly opened up to life. We said yes to life and the Shakti then just surged through us. What a wonderful feeling, right? We want to keep that feeling all the time but the problem is many of us don't.
Why don't we always feel it if we are meant to?
Sometimes we open up to life and experience it the way it is meant to be for us but too often we also close off the valve that allows the Shakti to flow through. When it doesn't flow through it leads to a blockage of energy that prevents other things from flowing through. Instead of experiencing the light, joy and love of life...we may then end up feeling the darkness, the sadness and the dissatisfaction with life that a blocked energy center will cause. Yuck. Depression is often a result of blocked energy.
There are a few things happening here that lead us to close. The first is that we are mistakenly assuming that the things in the outside world are completely responsible for what is going on inside of us. They may trigger an opening or a closing but they aren't responsible. Our minds are the things that determine if we are open or closed to life and therefore open and closed to the flow.
What is going on in the mind that closes us?
What causes us to close is a clinging and/or a resistance to life experiences that become impressions, memories or Samskara. Instead of accepting and experiencing life in the natural way by observing with our senses, experiencing fleeting thoughts and feelings without judgment and then releasing them, the mind may decide to cling to or refuse to deal with certain experiences. These experiences become impressions. We do not allow them to flow through us. They then leave an impression on us and are stored somewhere in our hearts.
We may cling to memories of good times we do not want to release and resist the not so great memories that we do not want to have to deal with. Mental clinging and resistance are the plague builders in the vessels that Shakti flow through. They close us off.
A Desire to Resist Pain and Cling to the Comfortable
All energy is meant to flow through us. All life experiences are meant to flow through us naturally and easily, bringing joy, peace and love as they do, regardless of what is actually happening on the outside. The mind sometimes gets in the way of that flow. When life happens as it does, we may "perceive" pain in a given experience. Something in the mind that wants to keep it stable and protected resists the painful or uncomfortable experience. We exert energy into pushing it aside or in most cases down through repression and suppression.
Pain Gets Stored Away; It Doesn't go Away
The pain may go out of sight but it doesn't go away. It gets stored somewhere and that place is usually in the heart: the seat of our emotions. Our resistance to life in that moment then leads to a blockage of energy. We don't experience Shakti because it is prevented from flowing through us. All because we said" no" to life in a given moment. As long as we have those Samskaras stuck inside us, this energy can not flow in the way it was meant to.
So we have these painful memories within our heart and consciously we may not be aware of them. We stuffed them away out of sight. But what happens when something triggers that memory? Like a smell, an image, a verbal reminder? The energy that is stored away comes up suddenly and it wants to be experienced. It wants to be expressed. It wants to be released. But what does the mind do?
Triggered Samskara
Feeling the inklings of remembered discomfort, the mind stuffs down the impression again and at the same time pushes aside the moment life is giving us as a gift. We say no to the pain. We say no to that moment. We say no to life and we close. All energy then goes into resisting instead of accepting and allowing the flow to work its way through us. We are once again closing off the Shakti because we are closing our heart .
Too many of us refuse to experience the pain even if it is only trapped in a memory, a mental modification, a thought. We refuse to release and therefore shut out the potential for healing and the potential for the joy, light and love that is waiting for us.
We did this to us. Life didn't!
So what do we do with these trapped Samskaras, if we truly want to heal?
- Stop blaming Life. Accept that it isn't Life that is making you happy or unhappy. It is your mind. Own that and go to the mind to heal the heart.
- Accept each moment and allow it to pass through you.
- Be willing to go through the process of purification and healing from old remembered wounds. Like many of you, I have stored trauma that needs to be dealt with. My fear of dealing with that pain is blocking the flow of Life energy through me. It is actually hurting my heart. I am finally willing to "go through the process of purification". Are you there yet?
- Accept pain. Patanjali discusses the need to accept pain as part of the purification process in sutra 1; Book 2. If we accept pain or discomfort as a natural part of Life, without judging it, resisting it or clinging to comfort we will stay open to the natural flow of Life through us. We will not block the Shakti. Pain does not block us. Our resistance of it and our clinging to what we perceive as comfortable does. This stops us from accepting each moment for what it is...and makes us say "no" to it. When we say 'no' to one moment we say 'no' to life. We close our heart to it.
- Relax. We need to relax the body and the mind so healing can take place. Yoga (Hatha) can help relax the body and open up the energy channels. Meditation can relax the mind and allow us "to sit deeply enough inside to stop fighting the stored energy patterns".
- Allow the heart to release and cleanse. Once we stop fighting them, the Samskaras will rise to the surface of our awareness. It is only there where they can be released once and for all and the channels for energy flow can be cleansed.
- Stay Centered. Stay in your true seat and watch as these impressions pass through you. Let go.
- Don't Close. Once we are purified we can refuse to close again.
References
Sri Swami Satchidananda (2011) The Yoga sutras of Patanjali. Yogaville: Integral Yoga Publications
Michael Singer. (2007) the untethered soul . Oakland: New Harbinger
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Questions about You
You are behind everything, just watching. That is your true home. Take everything else away and you're still here, aware that everything is gone. But take the center of awareness away, and there is nothing.
Michael Singer, from the untethered soul, page 29
I am going to play Socrates, for a minute, and ask you some questions. Actually, I want you to ask yourself these questions.
Where are you?
If I asked you that question at a party, you would probably give me a geographical answer and tell me where you are on the map or more specifically where you are at this moment in time. If you asked me that question right now, I would be inclined to answer: "I am sitting on a computer chair in my office, in front of the computer." Is that where we really are?
That is not the answer I am looking for. In fact, I am not looking for any answer at all. I just want you to ponder the question like I have been pondering. I am being very rhetorical. :)
Where the heck are you?
Are you in this world? Some would say you may be in this world, but you are not of this world. What does that mean? And some would say you are not in this world, this world is in you. That 'this world' is just an internal perception and interpretation based on what your five senses pull into you. Do you believe that?
Where are you?
Are you in the external dance of form going on all around you or in some geographically mapped out spot on the globe? Are you trapped in between distinct border lines be they geographical, cultural or societal?
Are you on earth? Are you confined in a body weighed down by gravity , on a rotating planet in some galaxy in this infinite universe?
Are you in those thoughts that are constantly going on in your mind? Are you in those emotions that knock you down and pull you up?
Are you in the opinion of other people? Are you in the story you created about yourself?
Can you be found outside or inside? And what is inside and outside? Inside what? The body? The mind? The heart?
When are you?
That sounds like a strange question, I know but think about it. Are you now? Are you an "I am"...or are you an "I was" or "I will be?"
Are you a composite of your past, history. When someone asks you about yourself, do you begin to tell them about all the things that led up to the moment they are asking the questions. "I was born in Cleveland and moved to Canada in 1982 after I graduated from university. I began working at the peat moss plant and staid there for five years before accepting a starring role in a film I accidently got discovered for. It was a flop so I then moved to Seattle where I met and married my husband. So here I am" Are you all about the past.
Maybe you are in the future. Maybe the you you want to be is who you focus on. "I am not where I want to be yet but when I finish my degree, or publish that book, or meet the right person I will be."
Have you ever answered that question with "I am now." Probably not and if you did you probably never got invited back to that party, but think about the possibility behind that answer.
What are you?
Are you defining yourself by what you do when I ask that question? Are you a nurse, doctor, teacher, carpenter or plumber? Are you defining yourself by your hobbies that you actively pursue..."I am a runner. I am a writer. I am an artist." Again if you define yourself by what you do, what are you when you can no longer do? Do you cease to be? Are you a human being or a human doing?
Have you ever answered a question about yourself as "I am a spirit having a human experience"...how weird does that feel? How right does that feel?
Why are you?
That's a pretty deep one but we would probably assume, if asked that question, that the person would want to know why we were there at that moment doing what we were doing. "Oh I was invited by so and so, you?" We may ask ourselves why am I the way I am? Why am I always making people upset? Why is my life such a mess? Why me? " Even these internally directed questions are not what I am asking.
"Why are you?" Leave it at that.
How are you?
Are you well? Unwell? Happy or sad? Peaceful or stressed?
How you are now at this moment, is it something that is constant and unchanging? Or is it a quality of experience that will fluctuate for you that will come and go?
Are you this defined quality of experience? Are you how you perceive and think about the world, others, self? Are you how you perceive, think, feel or behave in general? Are you based on a "how"? Can you be?
The thing is, we cannot answer any of those questions until we know who we are.
Who are you?
When you answer this last question, please don't give your name, your age, your body colour, shape or size. (Well don't give me anything really...lol...suppose to be a rhetorical question, remember?) Don't give me your occupational role, your familial role or the role you play in society. Definitely don't give me an opinionated version of yourself based on what others told you are or what you have come to believe you are in terms of judgement. Don't tell me you are a "nice person" or a "flawed" person. Don't tell me you are good or bad, ugly or pretty, successful or struggling, healthy or unwell.. These things, I know, are not who you are.
Who are you beyond all these things?
If you went to the court house right now and changed your name or your address...would "you" still be the same person you were before you made that change? If you dropped ten pounds or got so much sun exposure your once white skin turned brown...are you still the same person? Are you different person than the one who looked in the mirror when you were ten years old? Are you the same person who was registering for the courses that would take you to your chosen profession so many years ago? Are you the same person who was feeling good before that other person said that terrible thing to you that made you doubt yourself and feel bad? Are "you" changing like the things around you are?
Do you come and go through life like that?
Or could you be something that never changes and that was always there even though the things around you changed, came and went? Are you a different "being" every moment or is there a continual flow of your being from one "perceived" moment to the next?
Can you be confined to a specific time, place, label, role or image? Can you be in the past and future? Can you be limited by what you can do or how you feel?
Could you be more than your thoughts, feelings and the things going on around you? If you stopped thinking, if you stopped feeling and the flower in front of you that you were admiring suddenly fell over so you couldn't see it any more...do you stop being?
Is it possible...that you are something deeper than what those party questioners would expect you to answer as you mingle around the room? Is it possible that who you really are is beyond place, time, labels or activities? Beyond thought, feeling and perception?
Could you be nameless, timeless, changeless...always present, always watching, always there?
Hmmm! Just offering some questions to ask yourself. You may not be able to answer right away nor are you expected to...but how life changing those answers will be when they do come.
It all begins with asking about "you".
All is well in my world.
Michael Singer ( 2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger
Monday, May 20, 2019
The Tao ...again
The Tao is hidden and has no name; but is the Tao which is skillful at imparting(to all things what they need) and making them complete.
-Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching as transalted by James Legge
Chapter 34
The Great Tao is everywhere: on the right (masculine, powerful side) and on the left ( feminine, gentle side).
All things depend on it and all things obey it.
It does not take credit for all it creates and it creates everything. It clothes everything (protects it, nurtures it, keeps it warm) but it does not "Lord" over it. By not naming Itself as the source of everything it remains humble.
All things go back to the source/root and disappear without knowing it was The Tao that prevailed over it all.
The sage can do the same. By not making himself "Great" he accomplishes great things.
Chapter 35
To him who can represent the Tao, the world will be fixed. People will flock to him without threat of harm to find safety, peace and rest. There may be an attraction in the outside world that makes someone stop for a time but its not like finding teh Tao. And though the Tao spoken, using thoughts and concepts, is seemingly dull, It's use is inexhaustible.
Chapter 36
Before we breathe in, we breathe out; before we can weaken others, we must strengthen them; before we can knock others down, we must pull them up; before we can take from another, we must give. This is called " Hiding the light of procedure."
A look at opposing sides to strength: The soft overcomes the hard and the weak overcome the strong
Chapter 37
The Tao does nothing but there is nothing it does not do.
If princes and kings could maintain the Tao they could change everything. If the change becomes an object of desire...we must express this desire without naming it. Simplicity without a name is free of all external world goals. Without desire or craving all things will turn out right.
Chapter 38
Those who did not seek to possess the attributes(very nature) of the Tao did not seek to show they did and therefore they possessed it in full measure. Those who possessed the attributes in a lower degree and attempted to cling to it, did not possess it all. Those who possessed it in a higher degree did nothing purposefully and had no need to do. Those who possessed the Tao attributes in a lower degree were always doing and had a never ending need to do.
Those who had the highest degree of benevolence ( doing good) were always seeking to carry it out when they didn't have to. Those who had the highest degree of righteousness were always seeking to carry it out and they didn't have to.
Those who possessed the propriety: need to follow and adhere to rules and conformity were always seeking to show it and when others did not follow too they would bare arms against them.
So when the Tao (the Great way) was lost that is when its attributes appeared...when its attributes disappeared, benevolence ( need to do good) appeared; when benevolence was lost...righteousness appeared ( a need to be right or do right) and when righteousness disappeared, ...morality, conformity or propriety appeared .
So now propriety is a very weakened form of faith and it is where disorder begins. Swift apprehension is only a flower of the Tao and is where stupidity begins. A Great Man then will stick to what is solid and reject what is flimsy...will choose the fruit over the flower.
Chapter 39
Old things that got the One Tao include: heaven, earth, Spirit, Valleys, Creatures and princes and Kings.
Purity makes Heaven pure. Without firmness and surety, earth would bend and break. Spirit without power will fail. Valleys without water will be parched. Creatures without life will pass away. Princes and Kings without morality will decay.
That is why dignity finds its roots in humility and loftiness finds its root in stability. By maintaining humility in how they refer to themselves princes and kings see the roots of their dignity. They chose to appear ordinary rather than special.
Chapter 40
The contrasting forces strengthen each other and are what the Tao proceeds through. Weakness marks the course of Tao's mighty deeds. All things under heaven sprang from the Tao's existence and Its being named. That existence sprang from It as non existent and nameless ...the non-manifested realm.
Chapter 41
Scholars of high class when they hear about the Tao earnestly carry it into practice. Scholars of middle class get it then lose it. Scholars of lowest class laugh at it. It is important however that they do because if it was not laughed at it would not be fit to be the Tao.
There is so many contrasting ways to see the Tao. When it is at its brightest it may seem to lack light. When one seems to be progressing in it, they are seen as going backwards. It's even path may actually appear quite rugged. Its highest peak comes from the lowest valley. It's greatest beauty may actually offend the eyes. And the person who has most may actually be the one who lost the most. What appears to be firm virtue may be of low morality. What seems to be solid may be very changeable. Its largest square may have no corners and not appear like a square at all. The fastest vessel may be the slowest made. The sound maybe loud but it doesn't utter a word. It may seem like a great image when it is nothing more than a shadow made by shade.
The Tao is hidden, nameless and unseen yet it is the basis for everything. It gives to all that which is needed and makes all complete.
Half way through and I need some time to ponder on these chapters.
All is well.
James Legge ( 1895) Loa Tzu's Tao Te Ching. https://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/taote.htm
-Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching as transalted by James Legge
Chapter 34
The Great Tao is everywhere: on the right (masculine, powerful side) and on the left ( feminine, gentle side).
All things depend on it and all things obey it.
It does not take credit for all it creates and it creates everything. It clothes everything (protects it, nurtures it, keeps it warm) but it does not "Lord" over it. By not naming Itself as the source of everything it remains humble.
All things go back to the source/root and disappear without knowing it was The Tao that prevailed over it all.
The sage can do the same. By not making himself "Great" he accomplishes great things.
Chapter 35
To him who can represent the Tao, the world will be fixed. People will flock to him without threat of harm to find safety, peace and rest. There may be an attraction in the outside world that makes someone stop for a time but its not like finding teh Tao. And though the Tao spoken, using thoughts and concepts, is seemingly dull, It's use is inexhaustible.
Chapter 36
Before we breathe in, we breathe out; before we can weaken others, we must strengthen them; before we can knock others down, we must pull them up; before we can take from another, we must give. This is called " Hiding the light of procedure."
A look at opposing sides to strength: The soft overcomes the hard and the weak overcome the strong
Chapter 37
The Tao does nothing but there is nothing it does not do.
If princes and kings could maintain the Tao they could change everything. If the change becomes an object of desire...we must express this desire without naming it. Simplicity without a name is free of all external world goals. Without desire or craving all things will turn out right.
Chapter 38
Those who did not seek to possess the attributes(very nature) of the Tao did not seek to show they did and therefore they possessed it in full measure. Those who possessed the attributes in a lower degree and attempted to cling to it, did not possess it all. Those who possessed it in a higher degree did nothing purposefully and had no need to do. Those who possessed the Tao attributes in a lower degree were always doing and had a never ending need to do.
Those who had the highest degree of benevolence ( doing good) were always seeking to carry it out when they didn't have to. Those who had the highest degree of righteousness were always seeking to carry it out and they didn't have to.
Those who possessed the propriety: need to follow and adhere to rules and conformity were always seeking to show it and when others did not follow too they would bare arms against them.
So when the Tao (the Great way) was lost that is when its attributes appeared...when its attributes disappeared, benevolence ( need to do good) appeared; when benevolence was lost...righteousness appeared ( a need to be right or do right) and when righteousness disappeared, ...morality, conformity or propriety appeared .
So now propriety is a very weakened form of faith and it is where disorder begins. Swift apprehension is only a flower of the Tao and is where stupidity begins. A Great Man then will stick to what is solid and reject what is flimsy...will choose the fruit over the flower.
Chapter 39
Old things that got the One Tao include: heaven, earth, Spirit, Valleys, Creatures and princes and Kings.
Purity makes Heaven pure. Without firmness and surety, earth would bend and break. Spirit without power will fail. Valleys without water will be parched. Creatures without life will pass away. Princes and Kings without morality will decay.
That is why dignity finds its roots in humility and loftiness finds its root in stability. By maintaining humility in how they refer to themselves princes and kings see the roots of their dignity. They chose to appear ordinary rather than special.
Chapter 40
The contrasting forces strengthen each other and are what the Tao proceeds through. Weakness marks the course of Tao's mighty deeds. All things under heaven sprang from the Tao's existence and Its being named. That existence sprang from It as non existent and nameless ...the non-manifested realm.
Chapter 41
Scholars of high class when they hear about the Tao earnestly carry it into practice. Scholars of middle class get it then lose it. Scholars of lowest class laugh at it. It is important however that they do because if it was not laughed at it would not be fit to be the Tao.
There is so many contrasting ways to see the Tao. When it is at its brightest it may seem to lack light. When one seems to be progressing in it, they are seen as going backwards. It's even path may actually appear quite rugged. Its highest peak comes from the lowest valley. It's greatest beauty may actually offend the eyes. And the person who has most may actually be the one who lost the most. What appears to be firm virtue may be of low morality. What seems to be solid may be very changeable. Its largest square may have no corners and not appear like a square at all. The fastest vessel may be the slowest made. The sound maybe loud but it doesn't utter a word. It may seem like a great image when it is nothing more than a shadow made by shade.
The Tao is hidden, nameless and unseen yet it is the basis for everything. It gives to all that which is needed and makes all complete.
Half way through and I need some time to ponder on these chapters.
All is well.
James Legge ( 1895) Loa Tzu's Tao Te Ching. https://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/taote.htm
The Timeless Observer: Watching Addiction
Eventually, you begin to realize that the outside world and the flow of inner emotions come and go. But you, the only one who experiences these things, remain consciously aware of whatever passes before you.
Michael Singer, the untethered soul, pg 26
I am thinking...when really my goal is to transcend thinking. The timeless observer in me...is watching me and the world around me, move about through 'mental concepts'. I am aware.
An Uncomfortable Mind
My mind is uncomfortable with some of those perceptions, judgments, emotions and thoughts that are made as a result of what I am seeing and sensing. My ( the 'little me's) natural inclination is to do something about it, to right the perceived wrong...to act/react whether it be rationalize, dramatize, run, hide, numb or put great effort into fixing what is perceived broken...all because I feel uncomfortable in my mind. It gets mentally messy until some form of pseudo balance is restored.
The whole while, I am aware, that the timeless observer is sitting back, quietly watching life unfold in front of me and observing, without judgment, the little me's response/reaction to it. It has no problem with any of it. It just watches so peacefully detached. Sigh.
Crazy lady...what the front door are you talking about?
My Observation of Addiction
The outside world, emotions and thoughts are passing through again. I am observing what appears to be the re-emergence of dangerous addictive behaviour in another who I was hoping finally "got it!" This individual came this close to death twice and I saw that as an opportunity for him to see clearly and make better choices. I sadly realize that that what I saw in my "fairly clear" Self was not what he saw in his unconscious one.
I am not surprised...I mean, I do understand addiction and understand this young man's addiction in particular ( to a very limited degree). Truth is, he never made the conscious decision to quit...life just threw some pretty drastic circumstances at him in hope that he would.
Inability to Pay Attention in the Classroom
Life may have provided a wonderful lesson from its greatest teacher (death) but the student, unfortunately, was not ready to listen. He didn't "get it." He was too busy complaining about everything the "enforced" learning environment provided from how loud and in the face the teacher was to how uncomfortable the seats were ...to "hear". He was antsy and fidgety like a hyperactive kid and couldn't sit still and be in the "here and now". The addiction was more powerful, the restlessness too intense, and he was too unconscious to even realize that what he was given was a gift. So instead of being gratefully present with his mind and books wide open to recovery...he acted up and kept waiting for the bell to ring so he could go back to where he was before. The bell may not have rung but he is sneaking out and away from the learning anyway.
My heart breaks to see him give up on such wonderful learning and to see such a wonderful opportunity for Life offered by Life wasted. Addiction certainly makes people pathologically unconscious and that is so sad.
Observing with mind and Self
I observe this outwardly experience, both with my mind and with the Self. My mind shouts, "Do something! Fix this. Control him and his behaviour in anyway you can. Step up. Talk to people. Get him in somewhere. Force him to go to meetings, to tow the line and make better choices . Fight this. Own it to some degree. Or at least make others think that you are doing something!!! Make this "your" problem."
The Self whispers, "It is what it is. This is not yours. It is all his. Stay loving. Be compassionate. Express yourself honestly without any intention to manipulate, control or hurt. Control only what you have power over...your mind and your life. Set healthy limits. And then....Step back and allow Life to unfold. It knows what it is doing. This is not a battle for your ego. This is his...between him and Life."
I choose to listen to Self. As soon as I make that choice I feel peace, a letting go of that which I never had....power over him or his addiction.
The Reality of Addiction
There was a time in my life where I thought I could get addicts to stop using, that I could control, fix and sustain their recovery with my actions. I remember getting so upset with others when they talked about surrendering to addiction or when they told me that the loved ones problem wasn't mine and I had to step back! I didn't get that until now.
When I get cocky like that, I remember this axiom I heard once that stuck with me, "Help is the sunny side of control." I was not helping in those past situations. I was controlling from a state of grandiosity. I was owning what was never mine to own. I was giving ego something to work on and fix. I was not listening to my true Self. I know better now. Or at least I hope I do.
I am not responsible for another's addiction. "I didn't break it and I can't fix it."
So I lovingly let go. I go from understanding this with my limited mind and to accepting it with an open heart.
Observing even these most difficult challenges from the perspective of "the real you" is healing. It creates a totally different experience when the timeless observer is in charge.
All is well.
References
Singer, Michael ( 2007) the untethered soul. Oakland: New Harbinger
Michael Singer, the untethered soul, pg 26
I am thinking...when really my goal is to transcend thinking. The timeless observer in me...is watching me and the world around me, move about through 'mental concepts'. I am aware.
An Uncomfortable Mind
My mind is uncomfortable with some of those perceptions, judgments, emotions and thoughts that are made as a result of what I am seeing and sensing. My ( the 'little me's) natural inclination is to do something about it, to right the perceived wrong...to act/react whether it be rationalize, dramatize, run, hide, numb or put great effort into fixing what is perceived broken...all because I feel uncomfortable in my mind. It gets mentally messy until some form of pseudo balance is restored.
The whole while, I am aware, that the timeless observer is sitting back, quietly watching life unfold in front of me and observing, without judgment, the little me's response/reaction to it. It has no problem with any of it. It just watches so peacefully detached. Sigh.
Crazy lady...what the front door are you talking about?
My Observation of Addiction
The outside world, emotions and thoughts are passing through again. I am observing what appears to be the re-emergence of dangerous addictive behaviour in another who I was hoping finally "got it!" This individual came this close to death twice and I saw that as an opportunity for him to see clearly and make better choices. I sadly realize that that what I saw in my "fairly clear" Self was not what he saw in his unconscious one.
I am not surprised...I mean, I do understand addiction and understand this young man's addiction in particular ( to a very limited degree). Truth is, he never made the conscious decision to quit...life just threw some pretty drastic circumstances at him in hope that he would.
Inability to Pay Attention in the Classroom
Life may have provided a wonderful lesson from its greatest teacher (death) but the student, unfortunately, was not ready to listen. He didn't "get it." He was too busy complaining about everything the "enforced" learning environment provided from how loud and in the face the teacher was to how uncomfortable the seats were ...to "hear". He was antsy and fidgety like a hyperactive kid and couldn't sit still and be in the "here and now". The addiction was more powerful, the restlessness too intense, and he was too unconscious to even realize that what he was given was a gift. So instead of being gratefully present with his mind and books wide open to recovery...he acted up and kept waiting for the bell to ring so he could go back to where he was before. The bell may not have rung but he is sneaking out and away from the learning anyway.
My heart breaks to see him give up on such wonderful learning and to see such a wonderful opportunity for Life offered by Life wasted. Addiction certainly makes people pathologically unconscious and that is so sad.
Observing with mind and Self
I observe this outwardly experience, both with my mind and with the Self. My mind shouts, "Do something! Fix this. Control him and his behaviour in anyway you can. Step up. Talk to people. Get him in somewhere. Force him to go to meetings, to tow the line and make better choices . Fight this. Own it to some degree. Or at least make others think that you are doing something!!! Make this "your" problem."
The Self whispers, "It is what it is. This is not yours. It is all his. Stay loving. Be compassionate. Express yourself honestly without any intention to manipulate, control or hurt. Control only what you have power over...your mind and your life. Set healthy limits. And then....Step back and allow Life to unfold. It knows what it is doing. This is not a battle for your ego. This is his...between him and Life."
I choose to listen to Self. As soon as I make that choice I feel peace, a letting go of that which I never had....power over him or his addiction.
The Reality of Addiction
There was a time in my life where I thought I could get addicts to stop using, that I could control, fix and sustain their recovery with my actions. I remember getting so upset with others when they talked about surrendering to addiction or when they told me that the loved ones problem wasn't mine and I had to step back! I didn't get that until now.
When I get cocky like that, I remember this axiom I heard once that stuck with me, "Help is the sunny side of control." I was not helping in those past situations. I was controlling from a state of grandiosity. I was owning what was never mine to own. I was giving ego something to work on and fix. I was not listening to my true Self. I know better now. Or at least I hope I do.
I am not responsible for another's addiction. "I didn't break it and I can't fix it."
So I lovingly let go. I go from understanding this with my limited mind and to accepting it with an open heart.
Observing even these most difficult challenges from the perspective of "the real you" is healing. It creates a totally different experience when the timeless observer is in charge.
All is well.
References
Singer, Michael ( 2007) the untethered soul. Oakland: New Harbinger
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