The Three Factors

The three factors that seem to have the greatest influence on increasing our happiness are our ability to reframe our situation more positively, our ability to experience gratitude, and our choice to be kind and generous.
-Dalai Lama

I have gained so much valuable insight from this little Insight from the Dalai Lama calendar that sits beside me as I write. Looking for a quote to start the morning with and voila there one is.  (Of course, I am almost a week behind...lol...my sense of time lately is completely off!)

Let's look at this statement a bit.

The three things most likely to influence our sense of happiness (again happiness is a word I use loosely because it seems like such an "ego" word, doesn't it?  Superficial, almost?  I prefer the words; joy, peace, love, wholeness, wellness. But they are all just words and if the Dalai Lama uses "happiness", it is alright with me.) The three tings are:

• Our ability to reframe our situation more positively:  What does that mean?  Basically it means the more able we are to change the way we see and perceive our experiences the happier we will be.  We need to first understand that our life situations are not Life...they are just things happening around us or to this idea we have of who we are.  They are not the vital life force that is within us. Then we have to realize that what we perceive is usually influenced by ego-mind and therefore dramatized, made into story, negative, repeated again and again, mostly to keep us away from the truth of who we are so ego can maintain a sense of identity.  It is illusion, trivial, unimportant.  Then we examine that thinking and remove fiction from truth so we can see clearly.  We can reframe our thoughts into a more positive version (cognitive restructuring)  until we can get beyond thought.  Our goal...if there is such thing as goals...is to get beyond thought so that we perceive not only more positively but more clearly.
• Our ability to experience gratitude: This is essential...we need to be grateful for whatever is showing up in our lives now and what will show up in our lives in the so called future.  We need to appreciate Life in what ever way it shows up.  Appreciation is a step beyond accepting.
• Our choice to be kind and generous:  Life is all about  flow...a flow of giving and a flow of receiving.  What we receive...we give; what we give...we receive. There is nothing sweeter to the heart than giving.  When we give we are open and the love within us has a means to pour through us and pour out of us.  That is what it is all about. It's a choice that will free us, ultimately leading to joy.

Thanks Dalai Lama...

All is well in my world

Where focus goes, energy flows.
-Tony Robins

Do you believe that?

We have all heard of "The Law of Attraction" by now (what Neville Goddard referred to as " The Law of Assumption").  I am not sure if you believe in that or not.  I simply want to put the question out there:

Does energy really follow our thinking?

If all Life is energy (including our thinking), are our lives determined by what we place our attention on? Are our minds really that powerful?

And if manifesting is a real possibility should we be placing all our attention on the "tangible things" we think we want in this life time so we achieve money, cars, houses, special relationships, the great job, recognition or on  the intangible like "peace" and "love" and "joy"?  What is true "abundance" anyway?

If our intention is simply "joy, love and living a full and purposeful life", how do we focus on that?  Especially if we have to feel it first and act as if we are living it?  What would that mean?  What would it look like? What would that feel like?  And most importantly...what would that "be" like?

Hmm!  And if we are "being" that for the sake of "achieving" that ...isn't it then unnecessary to attempt to manifest anything  because we are already that?

Just pondering and putting it out there...confusing myself more than anyone else.  :)

All good.

We are what we eat?

I can't control everything in my life but I can control what I put in my body.
-Unknown

Sounds a bit like something an individual challenged by an eating disorder might say.  Wasn't intended as such. There is a healthy type of intermittent fasting that is not about "starving" the body but healing it and rewiring the way the mind thinks about food.

Juicing

I am on day five of another juice/smoothie fast and I feel amazing!!! I feel lighter, happier and more energetic.  This feeling was not really suppose to happen for a few weeks after the fast but I feel it now.

This was not done as a means to lose weight or gain a sense of control over my body. I had no expectations with this fast other than maybe hoping it would put me on a better nutritional path in the future and help to relieve some of the old body's symptoms. I also hoped that it would allow me to hear what the body really wanted beneath all the mind noise. Getting rid of my menopausal belly was not a goal as I know and fully accept that it is a healthy part of this transition.

Helping the body get rid of all the accumulated toxic and yucky stuff we put into it,  however, leads to a bit of healing. It allows us to hear it through occasional hunger pains and understand better how it responds to what we put into it.

Filling the trillions of cells within this clump of flesh with fabulous plant derived antioxidants, vitamins and micronutrients has made it happy.  A happy body will create a happier state of mind and a happy mind helps to create a happy being.

More on this later!!

All is well!

Listen to the Body

Our bodies speak to us, clearly and specifically,
if we are willing to listen to them.
Shakti Gawain


Despite the advances I have made:

Every morning I wake up with my jaws clenched tight.  I have broken so many back teeth in the last eight years  (which have been full of very challenging life circumstances) that I feel ashamed. I do occasionally get lower back pain that lands me in bed for days at a time.  I suffer from muscle strain and injury that the average duck wouldn't.  My feet are constantly aching.  My joints are sore because of how I hold my body.  (In a constant state of being  prepared for fight or flight).  And my ticker acts up ...though much less so...when I am tense. 

I  am physically tense.  I have always been. Yoga helps dramatically that is why I recommend it and teach it. Being off work helps more than I  realized it would. My spiritual practice is taking me beyond my mind's response to stress and old trauma to a more peaceful place. To the outside world I look more relaxed, centered and calm than I ever did.

 I am healing in leaps and bounds. I am so much better than I was, say in 2012, when my life circumstances started to change dramatically and traumatically. Yet, the truth is ...I am still tense.

The Body: a Reminder of the Healing Left to be done
 The body, I am realizing,  remembers and holds onto things even when we are able to get beyond the mind to some degree. Trauma does get entangled in our cells...possibly one of the reasons why we get cancer or other cell-destructive diseases???? Our body tension, then , is a good sign that we are not yet healed and a warning that we better take healing to the next level.

Possible Cause for my Own Body Tension


I have some challenges now dealing with the behaviour of a loved one whose choices make him  a definite risk to himself and to the community at large.  He has had very little social sanctioning or consequences for his behavioural choices and even when we are told something is about to go down in hope that it will protect him and others...it doesn't.  So, of course, the behaviours continue.

There is this collective and relayed perception  that he is "getting away" with one "social injustice' after another. That is true.   The people who feel violated come to us and say, "Why aren't you doing anything?" We have gone to the authorities several times with this definite observation in hope they would take over the reins of this.  They didn't. I have gone and pleaded with others to stop enabling only to find myself, indirectly enabling. Truth is I don't want it to be my responsibility to do anything.

We don't want it to be our responsibility. We...being myself, D., his extended family, and the authorities.  We are burnt out!  It is easier to turn our backs, close our eyes, and put our hands over our ears as we chant, "La!la!la!la!".

I believe in the Al-Anon axiom: You didn't break it!  You can't Fix it!  But I have gone beyond that to just not caring.  I close my eyes and try not to think of it.  And it seems that I am doing okay...in the peaceful center of "letting Go!" Yet, the moment he or his behaviour is mentioned; or heaven forbid the moment I am confronting him with these issues, my body tenses up. ...my sleep is disrupted...my ticker starts talking very loudly to me. My body speaks, when my mind won't.

I need to listen.  I am not sure, at this point, what my body is encouraging me to "do" or "be".

The Body's Message

Following the body's direction is not necessarily a matter of doing something...though it could mean taking part in some "inspired action."

The body's message is more, I believe, about becoming  aware by listening to it.  What does the body want us to hear? Maybe it is telling us that we were trying to "run away" from something we cannot run away from.  Maybe it is telling us that we haven't yet "let go" though we have convinced our conscious minds we have....thus creating tension from "clinging".  It may tell us we are still struggling and resisting internally. It may be telling us that we are not as truly "peaceful" as we seem to be. It may tell us that there is some trauma still stuck within and it needs help in getting it out.

Whatever the lesson...we need to listen!

The body, like the mind, is just a tool for communication.  We definitely do not want to get lost in it but it would be helpful if we listened to it ...a little more than we do.

All is well.

Our deepest feelings [of faith and reverence for the sacred]are precisely those we are least able to express, and even in the act of adoration, silence is only praise.
-Neville Goddard from The Power of Awareness

We may recognize there is something bigger, something so great that goes beyond our limiting understanding. 

We may sense that there is a perfection and preciousness to Life existing in everything,  at every moment...in the moment even though we cannot see it or perceive it with our senses.

We may begin to realize and remember that we are a part of that something and not merely the clumps of flesh others see  with over active minds and personalities. 

We may feel the deepest adoration and reverence for this scared truth that we fall to our knees. 

Yet we cannot explain it or our feeling about it with mere words. 

We cannot "know" It  with our crazy mixed up minds.

 We an only go to the silence and stillness within us  so we can experience It, Live It Be It, . 

We allow It to breathe and shine through us.

We do nothing.  It does all.

That is how we adore It.

All is well!

Start your new life today

This very day start your new life. Approach every experience with a new frame of mind -with a new state of consciousness. Assume the noblest and best for yourself in every respect and continue therein.
-Neville Goddard

 

Hmmm! A new life begins with a change of mind.  In fact, nothing will change unless you change the way you think of yourself, the world...Life.

So, so many of us are stuck in old ways of thinking and that thinking is reflected in the lives we are living.

Believe me when I repeat again and again...if we are experiencing any form of struggle or suffering...it is because of old tired beliefs, conditioning and thought patterns. The idea of "problem" is in our minds as is the solution.

Walk away from that old mental construct you have of yourself and step into the wonderful life that is waiting for you.

All is well.

The One Reality

When you know that consciousness is the one and only reality-conceiving itself to be something good, bad, or indifferent, and becoming that which It conceived itself to be-you are free from the tyranny of second causes, free from the belief that there are causes outside your own mind that can affect your life.
-Neville Goddard ( The Power of Awareness)

What is meant by this passage from Goddard's, The Power of Awareness?

Simply put when we realize how powerful our consciousness is ( our Essence Identity, our spirit, God, the Divine force...or whatever you wish to call this energy that moves us, creates us and the world around us...) we will truly understand that we are not victims to circumstance...We will understand that we create our life experience.  The tool we are given to that with...is our minds.

We create our life experience with our minds?

Pretty powerful statement isn't it? It may go against everything we were brought up to believe. It may go against what most people may believe. We may try as Rumi did to know thyself by copying other people while we walk around asleep...unaware of the dormant force within us.  We stay stuck in our limiting perceptions because we are told we are "supposed to". So possibility of more is something we may push aside for fear of being blasphemous or "crazy". 

Yet so many great teachers, including Christ taught this. 

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me, will do the works I have been doing and they will do even greater than these...John 14: 12 NIV

Belief is a very powerful thing. If we believe...truly believe in the power within us...we can do amazing things. We are not stuck anywhere but in our minds as Patanjali so often taught.

So it is our minds that limit us and our minds that can free us.  But what part of our mind does the bondage and what part of our minds do the liberating?

The subconscious needs looking at

According to Bruce Lipton, it is the subconscious that is both our so called "problem" and our solution.

Most of our negative, repetitive thoughts occur on the conscious level.  They drag us away from the present moment and for that reason are worthy of our attempts to get beneath them.  We can also, because they tend to be negative and Self defeating,  change them, reconstruct them, alter them to create a more positive thought experience.  We can affirm positive things to push the negative dialogue out of our heads.  That's all good and great.  That is even encouraged by the majority of today's population.

Yet...it isn't enough.  It doesn't lead to lasting change in our worlds, does it?  Why?

Because it is just a superficial fix.  Changing our conscious thoughts does not necessarily change our "beliefs" about ourselves and the world.  Those beliefs are ingrained into another part of our minds...the subconscious. Though we may become more and more aware of our conscious thoughts (as is necessary for our healing and evolving) we are often not aware of the belief system that hides in our subconscious minds. It is those beliefs, collected over years of social conditioning and learning, that we need to change, that we need to replace with healthier, more life affirming ones.

How do we do that so we are living the full, abundant lives we are want to live?

1. We need to first of all, recognize our "stuckness".  We need to be aware of what the mind in "status quo'' does to our life experience; how it limits and holds us back; how it creates "suffering".
2. Then we have to accept the possibility of more.  We have to accept the possibility that maybe if we change our minds, we can change our lives. We need to see that we are not victims of Life...we are victims to our minds.  We have forgotten that they are simply tools to help us maneuver through these wordly experiences...not something meant to control us and keep us stuck.
3. Then we need to know who we are.  We need to get beyond the  social  image we have created in our minds to who we truly are. We need to explore Self beneath the image of self. 
4. From there we need to know what we truly want...get beyond what we think we should want, what social media and other opinion dictates.  We need to get beyond what ego wants to what spirit wants. What do you truly want in your Life to be happy, joyful, alive and at peace?  Know that.  Be clear about it.
5. Want it obsessively and passionately!!
6. Then imagine, visualize as if you are living that experience right here and now.  Bring the so called future back to the only time there is...the now. It is best to do some good solid visualizing and imagining exactly what you want right before bed or right as you awaken. Lipton encourages having some type of affirming  recording to drift off to sleep with.
7. Act as if!  Act as if you have what you want in your life.  Act as if you are the exact being you want to be.  Act as if you are living the exact life you dream of living!!!
8. Give it at least three days to happen.  It takes that time for the brain to rewire. May take longer too...so do not put pressure on yourself with an exact time frame for achievement.
9. Don't get caught up in the details.  Step back and let life handle the rest without demanding how it should all get done.
10. Have Faith!!! Keep going back to number 3.

Of course this is a quickly made up how to list.  I will dig into it all a little deeper in the upcoming entries.

All is well!

Barks, Collin (1995 ) The Essential Rumi

Goddard, Neville (1954 )  The Power of Awareness.

Lipton, Bruce (2005 ) The Biology of Belief.

Satchidananda, Sri Swami (2007 ) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Don't Go Back to Sleep

 

 

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn’t decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the door sill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

-Rumi (Coleman Barks Tr?)
(https://apoemaday.tumblr.com/post/56153678473/dont-go-back-to-sleep)

 

Don't Go Back to sleep?

 

 

I stumbled across this poem yesterday in a selection of my own poems and I immediately found myself drawn to it.  Then I awoke this am in early dawn and the words, "Don't go back to sleep"  kept circling through my mind. 

 

I did go back to bed with the intentions to sleep (I have been feeling exhausted and drained by what I perceive going on around me)...but the words just kept getting louder.  "Don't go back to sleep." 

 

So I got up; went outside and even stood on the doorsill (though not round lol) where the two worlds touch. And asked Rumi why the h*&^ he drew me out here so early in the am.(lol)  Then the line "You must ask for what you really want!" hit me.  And it all made sense.

 

Ask for What You Really want

 

I had just finished a book by Neville Goddard on the power of imagination yesterday right before I stumbled across Rumi's poem. I had also run across a few  book passages, quotes and videos incidentally throughout the day that spoke to the idea of imagination and knowing and asking for  what you really want...putting it out there.  I had a friend at lunch who kept saying, "Be careful what you ask for" providing some challenging life examples that apply to that axiom. My daughter even brought  up "the power of thinking and imagination"  to me yesterday without prompting.  Yet, somehow the line, "you must ask for what you really want" eluded me until this morning...and boom! 

 

Now this is serendipity lol. I am being called back to the topic of using our imagination to create the world we want!

 

Dawn

 

When is our imagination most powerful ? When are we most likely to effect change in the way we perceive ourselves and our  worlds  thus changing   our lives by rewiring our subconscious programming? At dawn!! When our brain waves are in what is said to be a theta state. That theta state is the doorway where the two worlds touch.  It is a doorway between sleep and wakefulness...between the invisible and the visible, the manifested and the unmanifested...between the lives we are presently perceiving we are experiencing and the lives we  really want. If you fall back to sleep you fall out of the "dawning of greater possibility" and go into a deeper brain wave pattern.

 

So what is Rumi telling us in the above poem that will help us live better lives?

• We need to know ourselves and that begins with breaking away from the need to be like other people and our conditioned social learning that is ingrained in our subconscious minds. We need to step outside that level of perception and understanding.
• In those early hours  of the morning ( literally ) we are in a state where we can rewire and relearn because as we awaken we are in theta brain vibration.
• So we do not want to go back to sleep and fall away from that ability
• In the dawn of our new lives ( figuratively) as we "awaken" into a new understanding we are told secrets ...a spiritual truth emerges as we reconnect to  nature, the moment...who we really are.
• We do not want to slip back into the "dream state" of ego illusion.
• People go back and forth between wakefulness and sleep all the time(literally and figuratively) ...but what we really want is to stay awake.
• The people he could be referring to could be  those that have passed on, the two worlds being this physical world and the spiritual one...implying that there is support for our achieving a better life from the other side?
• The early hours are often referred to by many as the sacred hours or the hours of the Divine...the best time for meditation, prayer etc because we are then on the sill between the physical and the spiritual.
• The door is open between what we think and what we create.  I am not sure what he means by round?? I think of the womb of creation being pregnant and round with possibility but I am not sure if that has anything to do with what the poet intended.
• The biggest take away I get from this poem...now that I have read it for the 100th time lol is that we must ask for what we really want.  We must know what it is we really want beyond what we are conditioned to believe we want.
• If we are not careful we will end up with things we didn't want, like my friend did, because we were not clear with our intentions.
• Know who you are and what you really want.  Ask for it passionately in the early hour of the morning and in that cusp between physically awakening and sleep. as well as spiritually awakening and ego-dominated sleep. 
• The door of imagination is always round and open. We just need to wake up enough to go through it! 

All is well.

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
-Dalai Lama

Things don't always turn out the way we think they should , do they?  But they always turn out perfectly! 

An Example

We really hope to buy a particular car we have had our eyes on for months.  We save and put away for the down payment, we wait for the right circumstances and finally trot happily off to the dealership to make our purchase...only to find out the car we wanted was sold.  We didn't get what we wanted (or what we thought we wanted). Where is the luck in that? 

Well maybe something else will occur in your life that requires  the money you put away.  Maybe you will hear that that particular model was recalled because of some major dangerous defects.  Maybe another car will come along that is even more appealing to your psyche.

Of course, at the time of finding out that  the thing you wanted is something you can't have...you will feel defeated, punched down and possibly rejected by Life.  It will suck...

Just know that you are not rejected by Life...you can never be.  Trust that Life knows what it is doing.  If you were meant to have that car...you would have it. What you want is not always what you need on this journey towards your best Self.

It really has little to do with luck though...it is just Life being Life.

It is all good!!!

How beautiful his sinlessness will be when you perceive it!
-ACIM-T-25: V: 5:4

My heart breaks a little bit when I see someone struggling with their own version of sinfulness. I also want to judge and condemn this person  for his "sin" because I personally feel violated and frustrated by his choices.   I know though that what my ego judges him to be in those moments I slip away from my realization of Self and essence identity, is nothing in comparison to how he judges himself ...even if he does not realize that yet because of all his  perceived brokenness.

Sigh!!! Our house got broken into while we were gone and some valuable items ( that did not belong to me) were stolen.  We knew immediately when we were told, which was while we were away, who the individual was. (Well we didn't know...strongly suspected with evidence to back up our suspicions...but who ever truly "knows" anything?  Innocent until proven guilty, right?)

I was so angry at first...I still get angry but the anger does not last long before compassion takes over.  I feel bad for him. Though there may be no socially sanctioned consequence for this action, the consequences of his  past actions and choices are about to slap him across the face. He is now like a frightened child waiting for his daddy to come home from work to punish him.  This daddy is the penal system and the daddy comes home today. He has run away to hide under the bed but he knows like we all know, Daddy will find him. There is no escaping the punishment this time.

It is just so sad to see people get so lost, to mentally stray  so far away from their own pure and perfect Self that they allow ego's need for immediate gratification to take them into some pretty dark places where others get hurt.  Yes there needs to be social sanctions, legal repercussions and consequences for hurting others...but do we as a social whole...have to judge him as a "sinner"? What do we get from doing that?

We get a sense of self righteousness, a bit of a reprieve as our own "sinfulness" gets diminished somewhat in comparison to his. We get an outlet for our own hate and anger (that we all have people as long as we are not truly Self realized).  And our sense of "me" becomes stronger, doesn't it, when we have a target for blame, and judgment?  In some weird way we like to be victims.  It adds to our "story" doesn't it?

Yet...we are no better , no worse than the individual about to be punished.  We are all capable of all he has done and more...as long as ego calls the shots.

I am going to try to put down my judgment here, to put away my need to add drama to my story, and I am going to try to look beyond the broken, festering ego this person wears and see what is truly  there.  We are not what our bodies do.  We are not what we think and feel.  We are not the choices we make.  We are so much more than that. He is so much more than that

Beneath the ego and the crazy monkey minds that can take us to many strange places is a perfect and pure essence.  If we could see it in all others, regardless of what they may do, would they not strive to be better ?  Would we not be better off to see sinlessness rather than sin?

I share this only because it brings a profound question to the healing mind.

All is well in my world.

Essence Identity: What Uses What?

The essence of you is [a part of ]the essence of the universe.
-Eckhart Tolle

So we are so much more than this that we can perceive with our senses and describe, explain or even understand with our minds? 

We are minds in bodies; formless in form; invisible in the visible; spirit in matter; timeless in some concept of "time"; changeless in the changing ; eternal in the temporary and we are in this world but not of it?

Our true identity then is the essence beneath every "thing"?

In the short video clip listed below, a question is asked, "How do we use our essence identity to make better choices?"  Eckhart Tolle quickly replies with this truth:  We don't use essence identity; essence identity uses us.

We got it so very mixed up. We ...as this pathetic little me...walk around this planet thinking we are using everything and have a right to. It doesn't work out so well for us so we decide to search and seek for something deeper...for the purpose of using it to make these pathetic little me better.

How can the pathetic self use the Divine Self?  How can illusion use truth? How can bodies use minds? Form use the formless? The visible use the invisible? Matter use spirit? An illusion of  time use the truth of timelessness? The ever changing use that which is incapable of change? The temporary use the eternal?

It can't... can it?

Our essence identity...that which we truly are cannot be used.  It uses this form we are in, our minds, our bodies, and this world we are in to do what it does...shine.  It is always there...always present because it is presence. It just is!  And once we realize presence...it will use this limited form of us  to shine through onto the world.

We are the formless presence beneath form...so the body doesn't run the show.  We, (as our true selves: Essence Identity) are not used by  the body ...presence uses the body.  We are not used by our minds...presence uses the mind. We are not used by this concept of time, or change...presence  uses that.  We are not used by the world...presence creates and uses the world to do what we are here to do...shine.

But the "we" I speak of here is not the little "me" we have come to know through over identification with body, mind and the physical world... as self.  It is not this story we created. It is not a separate little entity trying to find peace and enlightenment in a busy chaotic world. It is beyond all that.  It is beyond body.  It is beyond mind.  It is beyond this world as we perceive it.

And at the same time...it is it.  It flows through and wraps itself  so gracefully, so perfectly around all of it.

We just need to be present.  We do not need to use anything. We just need to fall back into the stillness of our own essence identity and allow ourselves to be used by it.  The little "me"  may never use it.  We can, however,  be vehicles for this amazing light to shine through, while realizing we are that light.

All is well.

Eckhart Tolle (2019) How can we use our essence identity to make better choices? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtkyDZFQvCw

In Essence, You Are...

The answer is, who you are cannot be defined through thinking or mental labels or definitions, because it is beyond that. It is the very sense of being that is there  when you become conscious of the present moment. In essence, you and what we call the present moment, at the deepest level, are one.
-Eckhart Tolle (https://www.quotetab.com/eckhart-tolle-quotes-about-essence#jEbU6x8Beva9A3Bi.97)

Self-Realization

Our own Self-realization is the greatest service we can render the world.
-Ramani Marharshi (https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/self-realization)

So the best thing we can offer the world is our own realization of Self which in a sense is enlightenment, waking up and finally becoming aware. 

What is Self -realization?

Yet what is this thing we call self realization or awareness of Self?  We can't seek it or ever get "there".  We can't define it with words or concepts?  We can't understand it with the mind?

WTF (front door)?

How are we going to realize Self when we don't even "know" what  Self-realization  is?

The Mind that Wants an Answer

Ahhh!  But it is the mind that poses that question.  It is the mind that wonders what it is. It is the  mind that occasionally slips beneath ego's veil for just a second to attempt to curiously peek at the this "consciousness thing." It is the mind that needs to seek, attain and then  describe and explain awareness.  Isn't it?

It is also the mind that personalizes everything, the mind that needs to create images and stories about who we are.  It creates an idea of self  in lieu of knowing Self. That idea of self is wrapped in "I" and "me" and "mine".  It is wrapped in a need to do, achieve, attain, cling, defend and attack for anything it perceives as belonging to the "my story"... including awareness.  It is the mind that has to narrate, explain and conceptualize our living. It is the mind that has to conceptualize self.

Yet by conceptualizing self it fails to realize Self.  The self it explains is not the Self we need to live in order to serve the world. Anything that can be explained by the mind is not truly realized.

A name that can be named is not a lasting name. (translation of Tao Te Ching by P.J. McLaggan, 1898....http://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/tao-te-ching.htm.)

The self we think we are is not the Self we are.  We are so much more than that story we use to define and explain our limited versions of "me".

So what do we do to become Self - realized?

We get beyond the mind.  We put away our need to explain and use concepts to understand.  We accept that this thing we may call enlightenment  cannot be explained...it cannot be sought after...it cannot be found somewhere in the future.  It just is.  So we simply open up and allow  this "isness" which is simply the here and now to be.

We recognize the mind and what the mind does.  We understand its 'crazy' nature. We do not try to stop the thinking or necessarily control it.  We just look beneath it to what is there. We sit in stillness and silence with it,  knowing that we cannot narrate our way through what we may find.  It is beyond words, beyond explanations and the limited ability of the mind to understand.

Self is here where it always was and always will be.  It isn't going anywhere. All we can do is live it, experience it, feel it and be it...We simply be what we always were and will always be.  The mind can't take us there but we can be here.

That is self-realization.

All is well.

You are not suppose to love yourself until you do.

                                                                       Byron Katie

Wherever you are at right here, right now is exactly where you are supposed to be. What ever you are experiencing at this very moment is perfect because it simply is.

Stop resisting it!  Stop beating yourself up for it! Stop "shoulding" yourself to death. 

If you are not the person you want to be...don't sweat it!  You are what you are and that is all that matters.  The next moment may be different but until you accept who you are "now" there will be no evolution.

If you are not feeling as happy and confident as you want to feel...don't let it get to you.  You are feeling the way you feel.  It is what it is....right "now".  Allow whatever you feel to just be...it will pass.  But right now it is simply is.  Don't block it...let it pass.

If you are behaving in ways you vowed you would never behave...don't cringe and crawl away from Self in shame.  Face it!  Accept it! Though you will make better choices in the next moment...know that it is perfect as it is right now. Regardless of what you do because you are not what you do. How beautiful his[and your] sinlessness will be when you perceive it! ACIM:25:V:5:5

It is all perfect. This is it....because it is!  That is all you need to know! 

All is well!

Enlightened...Here and Now

Enlightenment is just a spiritual concept, just one more thing to seek in a future that never comes.
Byron Katie from Loving What Is, (Three Rivers Press; 2002)  page 395.

You are not supposed to be enlightened until you are. 

You are not supposed to be there until you are there.

In fact you are not supposed to be anywhere but here until you are there.  And when you are there... you are here.

How is that for a mind twister?

I write and write and write about enlightenment...about waking up ...of someday reaching that state where the tendency to fall back to sleep is gone.  I keep saying..."I am not there yet." "I want to get there."

I use these words only because that is what the ego mind understands.  Past, present and future and time are "concepts" the mind created and understands.  But they are just "concepts"...ideas, words and thoughts in our heads. They are not things that can be "experienced" and therefore not real, not truth.

In actuality there is no getting there because there is no "there''.  When a future projection is reached in our minds...we are "here"... not "there." The there is not something we can ever hold, feel or experience because it is just a concept. The future is a concept only...a story. 

All we can truly experience is the present moment we are in.  Everything else is just an idea. Therefore the only place we can live is here and now.

Enlightenment is just a concept...like the "there". It is the carrot at the end of a stick propelling us forward in our desire to reach it...but we can never reach it as long as it is held before us.  Enlightenment is a state in the "there" that we seek.  When we seek in the "there" we are not experiencing the "here"...and here is the only place we can be awake....because here is all there is.

The only place to be awake is here and now.  We need to stop with our doing, our striving, our looking and searching...if we really want to be awake. Right here...right now...we wake up.

Wherever you are at is exactly where you are supposed to be.  This is your awakening...not some elusive dream ahead of you.  Right here, right now is where you are  and that is exactly where you are supposed to be.  Wake up here.

People talk about self-realization. and this is it!  Can you just breathe in and out happily?  Who cares about enlightenment when you're happy right now?  Just enlighten yourself to this moment.
Katie, page 306

You are a student of yourself

The advice you have been giving your family and friends turns out to be for you to live, not us. You become the wise teacher as you become the student of yourself. It stops mattering if anyone else hears you because you're listening.  You are the wisdom you offer us, breathing and walking and effortlessly moving on, as you make your business deal, buy your groceries, or do the dishes.
Byron Katie from Loving what Is (2002), page 310.

Hmmm! How is that for profound? 

I so often wonder why I write here; why I come here every morning for a small unseen audience.  I wonder why I do what I do...why I teach or offer advice the way I do to readers that I will likely never know.  Who am I to teach anything when I have so very much to learn?

Then it dawns on me...that I don't do it for you necessarily...I do it for me.  I teach to learn and I learn to teach. I am not attached to the outcome of you learning something from me...of you hearing me. (No offense.)

I realize that I hear me.  I learn from me and my entries here.  Some part of me that is growing and evolving within my core is teaching "all" of me what I so need to know. If I live that than I become a teacher incidentally only.

Ego is not in charge here.(Obviously by some of the poetry I put up :)) This wise teacher within ....is.  Every time I write something, I am learning, growing, expanding from it...even if it doesn't make a lick of sense to someone else.

I have been "giving advice" by offering what I am learning to my loved ones as well.  Every time I shared I would become more in sync with what I was saying...even if these loved ones thought I was crazier than a bag of hammers.

I was surprised yesterday to see how after so much resistance to my shared observations and learning, that certain others said to me, "Oh my God!  I get it now...I know what you meant.  I see why you think like that.  It all makes so much sense to me." People learned from me only after I learned from me.

So that means you are your greatest teacher too!  Are you listening to you?

All is well in my world.

Under an Indiana Sky
 

why can't you hear it...

the beautiful symphony of sound

being played just for you

under this perfect Indiana sky?

 

close your eyes

and listen to the music

that lies like white noise

beneath  your hard working bodies

and  your busy minds.

 

get beyond your toil,

 your  thinking,

and feel the vibration of Life

buzzing in the branches

of the majestic  trees

that stand so protectively around you

 

 

rest  your sleepy heads back

and breathe in 

the chords of living

that are so eloquently strummed

by  the instruments of cicadas

as the  katydids and crickets

 sing in perfect unison

 

hear the wind

whistling so sweetly

 through the

happy tussled heads of corn

that dance and sway

in the endless fields behind you

 

rest in this

like you so deserve to do

 as your envious eastern cousins
hold their breath in awe.

Dale-Lyn August 2019

Calm Abiding

Calm abiding is predominantly stabilizing meditation, in which the mind is kept on a single object...since the mind that is scattered to external objects is relatively powerless, the mind needs to be concentrated in order to be powerful.
-Dalai Lama


I'm back!!! I have so missed coming here everyday but I suppose the break did us all good.

Had a great trip! Met some beautiful people and seen many different things. 

And as we were driving along the many miles/kilometers  we drove along...I was able to bring my mind back again and again to the moment, to the scenery, to the feel of my body in the seat.  I really enjoyed the trip more because we could do that.

Though there was no one single object to settle on...there was so much to see in the beautiful landscape...I did find myself abiding calmly in the here and now of Life....in the moment  (Even when the traffic got real crazy!!!)  I could bring myself back out of thinking and into being in the moment.

Hoping that is getting easier for you to do as well.


It is all good.

Everyone cannot renounce the world and meditate in the mountains.  This is not practical.
Dalai Lama


We all can't go off to the mountains no matter how uncomfortable this transition can  be.  Settle in to the  discomfort, accept it, embrace it and know that like all things it doesn't last forever. We will get there.

Going away for a week...(and no...not to the mountains lol) ...may or may not be able to write but I will try.

All is well

I didn't hear a click with that one. lol. Nor did I expect to after thirty minutes of writing and spending most of that thirty finding words that rhyme with the  last word of the line above it lol.  (That is the trouble with rhyme schemes....unless one is an expert at the craft...which I am not...rhyming can become the priority over meter, rhythm and poetic description.  The poem can lose a lot of its flow if one is not careful.)

The message, however, was inspired and meant to be placed upon the page.  There was truth to that...including the fact that I feel so darned vulnerable and confused especially in social situations.  Without my roles and this false sense of "me" I really do not know how to maneuver around the crowds and the circumstances in front of me.  It is a little nerve wracking. And , at the same time, it is all okay. I am finding what I truly need and want.

All good.

Off the Stage

I stand here shivering, alone  and at the brink of tears,
my flimsy defenses crumbling under all my many  fears.
I look about the world  ahead and feel so very much afraid.
I glimpse  back at ego's world and wish that I had staid.

I don't know what to do here without my heavy shield
of pretend, of illusion, of images of me that were never real.
Part of me longs to slip back into the dream state of illusion;
to put my "me" mask back on and hide somewhere in that delusion.

I long for armour. Though exhausting, painful and heavy to carry....
it seemed to   protect me from something that I could never bury
beneath the many layers of make belief ego put into my mind
in hope that truth would be something I would never find.

Yet determined to be heard, Truth called out to me in the way it always does,
 with a soft  whisper, a compelling  song, a warm and happy buzz.
But   I didn't listen, so content was I, to strut for glory upon the stage.
Lost in my role of "heroine", of "villain" and of "victim" , I ignored Life's only sage.

So  Truth  called out again,  removing from me the things I thought were "mine":
 props, applause, and the starring role by which my character was defined.
As the curtains close behind me and the costumes of dream  carried away,
I stand naked and exposed as the person, not the actor, to the light of day.

Here I am with weepy eyes and trembling limbs, looking out at all of you
who sit in chairs of judgment, watching, and  doing what people do.
And  you become my mirror.  I see my reflection in your eyes.
I am you.  You are me. There is no more need for our habit of disguise.

Suddenly I see how lost  I was, how asleep I was, for so very long
in my ego's need for your approval and its desperate need to belong.
 I put away my script and story, my  roles and my crazy thinking mind
and I step off the stage into the peace  Truth was wanting us to find.

Dale-Lyn August 2019

Great poems end with a click of a well made box.
William Butler Yeats (Well it is debated if he said that exactly like that :))

Hmmm! Sometimes I hear a click...and many times I don't. 

The word "great" in writing is a very subjective thing and it doesn't mean that what was created was"publishable" or loved by the masses.  I believe it is more about resonating a certain truth...telling a story about what is "real" beyond the obvious.....touching a core inside, even if that thing touched is only inside the writer itself.  It touches the core of humanity ...somehow....reminding us of who we are.

I am not saying my poems are "great".  I am not saying my poems are "awful".  I am okay with "mediocre"...especially in the poetry.  I have learned not to judge them because I really, really do not think I have much to do with it at all. 

When it comes to poetry, I just sit with an urge and allow whatever is meant to come out... come out. It is not mine...so if it "sucks" according to others, I am okay with it.  I will feel "good" about it when I read it back after it was written and say, "Yes! that does speak a certain truth I was not completely aware of."  That's all.

So I do not put my poems up here, as imperfect as they are, to be critiqued or exalted...I put them up because this blog is about truth and so is poetry. I hear a click maybe that others will never hear and that is okay.

All is well

[Writing is]waiting on the edge of attention for a voice to appear...it is one continuous non-stop meditation.
Stephen Mitchell

Time, this morning

Good morning world

 

Good morning melody....
being swept so softly
across my awakening gray matter

Soothing,
coaching me to wake up
to beauty and life’s lovely
and simple offerings

Like laughter form a child
or the purring of a kitten
it makes me smile

And my day begins
with lips that tease of a light heart
as I sway back and forth

To the magic of your guitar

 

Good morning solitude
that wraps its arm around me
and leads me here to this

Quiet place
of soulful reflection and stillness

That sits me down
and perches on the end of my chair

Gesturing me forward
as I close my eyes and move my fingers

across the key board
in rhythm with the music
being played around me

and I play
my own music
in honour of you.

 

Good morning earth
that grows
and dances
and sings
outside my little window

Entertaining,
displaying,
 teaching
and healing me
in ways I can not yet understand

Stitching up the holes
in my heart
as I smile along to the life

That jumps and skips
out there …
pulling me into t
he emerging beauty

Telling me
I am a part of it…
that we are one

And I reach out to You

 

Dale-Lyn

 

Man...I wrote that awhile ago.  I  forget exactly when...though I do have my original somewhere.  I am afraid to find it because I am afraid it is going to show that I wrote it like ten years ago.   It always shocks me to see how much time I am missing. I  find that big gaps of time are slipping from me.  I think I wrote something like last year and find out it was years ago.  People say this is normal as you age...time seems to go by fast.

 

Time is not doing anything, is it,  because time is just something our minds have made up?  Does it really matter if I wrote it a year ago or maybe ten? The passage of time is just a belief I have that takes me from this morning and this now.

 

The only aspect of time that is eternal is now. ACIM-T-5:III:6:5

 

You have elected to be in time rather than eternity, and therefore believe you are in time. ACIM-T-5:VI:1:4

 

All is well.