Does Religion Serve A Purpose

 

Another Question; Another Attempt at an Answer!

Does religion serve a purpose?

All is well!

A Stick or Not-A-Stick?

If you call it a stick, you affirm. If you call it not a stick, you negate. Beyond affirmation and negation what would you call it? 

Tai- Hui

What does that little question inspire in you? W hat do you think it means and how can you apply it to how you approach your life? 

All is well. 

Are You a Victim of Your Emotion?

 Most of the world is like a mental hospital. Some persons are sick with jealousy, others with anger, hatred, passion. They are victims of their habits and emotions. But you can make your home a place of peace.

Yogananda

Victim of Emotion? 

We focus so much on our emotions, don't we? We base most of our decisions about who we are going to be with, what we are going to do, what we are going to say or how we are going to live based on our emotions. We often ask: "Well how does this make me feel or how will it make me feel? How do I feel around this or that person or this or that situation? " We tend to move towards that which makes us  feel "good, comfortable and safe," and away from that which makes us feel "bad, uncomfortable or in danger".  Our emotions are the meter by which we often make our decisions.  We move according to that meter. 

That seems to be the perfectly healthy thing to do. Right?  We seek life experiences that feel good or that we assume will make us feel good. Well what happens when we cannot change the world out there to meet our emotional meter of okayness?  We suppress, repress or push away our feelings. (Both clinging to and pushing away equate to stuffing emotion inside). 

"Well...if  I can not avoid that person over there that "makes me angry", I will stuff my anger so I don't have to feel it now.  Or if  I cannot change the fact that something painful happened in  the past, I will stuff that emotional experience." 

In our love/hate relationship with our emotions, we often ask "How and what can I do to taste the good feelings and avoid the bad?" Seldom, however, do we ask, "What are these emotions that I am giving all my life power to? What are emotions?" 

What are Emotions? A Spill Off of Shakti at Work?

Michael A. Singer, in the below podcast, tells us that an emotion is simply the spill over from the purification process of the shakti doing its work.

Say what, Crazy Lady?

Do you remember what Shakti is? Shakti is the natural flowing state of energy that is who you really are. It is a river of peace, joy, bliss and love flowing from the Source. It is pure consciousness and awareness. It is Sat Chit Ananda and it is who you are.  In this body and mind/personality you call "me" is this infinite source of energy attempting to pour through and out of you. It is not emotion.  It is a state of being in its purest form below your emotion and other mental modifications.

Blocked

 This energy, that is meant to flow freely in abundance, however, is blocked by all you samskaras...knots of accumulated "stuff you stuffed". All those experiences  are what you clung to because they were pleasant enough for you to want to repeat the "feeling";  and all those things that happened that were painful enough for you not to want to feel it again. You consciously and semi-consciously pushed all this stuff down into a box called "psyche" and this created some major damning.  Consciousness focuses on the noisiest...and the stuff in this box is noisy, as is the psyche's attempt and deep desire for you, as this idea of a separate little "me",  to avoid more pain and discomfort. So most of your  focused awareness shines  on what is in these boxes and on  how to keep  repeating the "good stuff"(= positive emotions) and how to prevent the "bad"  stuff (= negative emotion) from coming up,  and on how to avoid any other unpleasant experiences out there that might bring similar discomfort. Our attention goes on repeating good emotions and avoiding bad emotions, reinforcing these damns we built that block the shakti flow.  

Shakti, however, is meant to flow. So it flows...its energy is constantly hitting these knots or psyche boxes loosening the lid so some of the "stuffed stuff" gets out. We experience a certain turbulence on one side of the box as the force of Shakti hits it and a certain letting go of some stuffed feeling on the other. This is what we call an emotional release. It can be pleasant or unpleasant. It can lift the "me" up or it can bring it down into the pits of despair or somewhere in between.  But if we decide to live according to these emotions, like many of us are doing, it is like riding a rollercoaster that is only going to make us sick in the long run. 

Emotions are not your natural state,  We do not need to fret over them. They are neither "good or bad" so we do not need to honor them or suppress them.  They are just a bit of spill off from the purification process.

Purification process?

Yeah, purification process.  This Shakti is meant to flow within you and out of you as it flows within and without everything in this universe. It wants to be free so it is pushing and pushing and pushing against your psyche's boxes attempting to empty them and eventually get rid of the whole trunk that is in its way.  These emotions you are experiencing are a sign of Shakti at work. Its force is loosening the lid and releasing that which is within, a little at a time.  It is cleansing you of that which does not serve you and that which is in the way of you experiencing who you really are. When you are experiencing emotions, know it is a healing  thing.  Shakti is working to purify you. 

The temporary release of some pleasant stuffed emotion may feel like something wonderful when it brings you up...but...don't get too attached because it will not keep you up. It will come down quick. (You are riding a roller coaster, remember, when you are following your emotions).  It may also feel like crap when the painful stuff is released, yes, but don't resist it. The more you avoid the tendency to stuff back down and reseal that box, the cleaner you will become inside and the freer you will be to experience Shakti. There is peace, joy, bliss and love in this shakti flow that doesn't fluctuate like your emotions do. You can float in that. That is your home. 

So what do I do crazy lady?

You do not need to do anything.  Just allow the emotions to come up when they come and be released when it is time for them to be released. Allow them to come up and go with each wave of the purification process. Allow yourself to be cleansed. Make your home a place of peace. 

A Yogi is the rare soul that who has learned  to sit through the natural processes of purification.

All is well.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( July 30, 2023) Understanding Emotions. https://tou.org/talks/

Karma is Not the Problem

 Karma-the memory of experience-is the only thing that can bring wisdom to you, and it is the only thing that can bind you- and it is the one thing that can so heavily poison your life and destroy you.  Karma is not the problem-how you carry it is.

Sadhguru

Two Words: Karma and Impetus

I woke up with two words on my mind.  I could see the words...I could hear the words being repeated in my head as I got out of bed and began my daily routine.  The first word was "karma".  Now that is not surprising as I have been thinking about "karma" for a long time, wanting to understand it both at a personal level and on a deeper level. (Sometimes, it feels like I am living off some 'bad' karma and I want to do what I can to "pay off this debt" for myself and others. Of course, I know I do not understand  karma enough with my westernanized mind.)  The second word is "impetus".  Now that one surprised me? It was just there bopping around in my head, twisting up my tongue a little bit because it is not a word I use at all.  In fact, I wasn't even sure what the word meant.  Why were these two words floating around in my head this morning, at the exclusion of so much else? Do they have anything to do with each other? I had to find out.

Family Suffering: A Karmic Debt?

Before I had a chance to find out,  I was reminded of the suffering of my children.  My adult children are suffering so much, making choices leading to more suffering and it literally feels like my heart is breaking as I look upon that suffering.  I always feel, when I am reminded of what seems to be their inescapable suffering, that this is some form of karmic debt "I", as "me",  am paying off.  Sure it is their pain and their choices  but because I identify as their mother, because I see them as "my" children, becasue "I" feel their pain....I see us all trapped  under this dark karmic cloud.  When I ask why is there so much pain and why are all of them suffering so much  at the same time,  I could go through a host of common denominators, with my parenting: what I did or didn't do, being the big one. But I also see through past memories  the circumstances of our lives together  unfolding in a way  that seemed so circumstantial with little input from "me" as this "I" they see as mother. In other words, I take full responsibility for anything I did or didn't do that led them to where they are now but I do see how that is only a tiny bit of it.  Why then are they suffering so?  Why has this big dark cloud landed over us and why has it followed us around for so long, even when I am so devoted to my sadhana? It is one thing that I suffer from my personal woes but to see them suffering...man, that is hard to watch. Sigh! 

So, I wanted to know in Yogic terms if I was paying off a karmic debt and if so how could I pay it off sooner. Willing to do the work required etc.  So that is why, I suppose, the words were following me out of bed this morning. 

Now according to Oxford Languages, Karma is destiny or fate following as effect from cause. And Impetus is the force that makes something happen or happen more quickly. In most of our limited understanding of things, here in the east, karma is that force that makes things happen, right? These words are pointing in the same direction: What force is causing this suffering to take place? My limited mind says: Karma. 

Then I ask, what is the cause of this effect?  Followed by  the old egoic question, "What have "I" done to deserve this? (Yes ego always brings it back to little "me" and "my children" is an idea that belongs to little me. ) 

Carrying a Core Belief is Karma

 Like many people I am still caught up in the idea that Life is doing this to me ( through my children...the softest and most vulnerable spot I have ) .  I have advanced so far in my practice but there is still a core belief within me that I am being punished by some force out there for some terrible deed I did but cannot remember in this life or in another. I am working off my debt and the more I practice the more suffering I see in my children becasue I am "consciously" working it off?? 

Sadhguru often reminds us that we are 99 % living our lives unconsciously and we are not taking responsibility for what we are doing, thinking and saying. So wrapped up in these memories we have from this life, and what we inherited from the lives our ancestors lived. We have developed likes and dislikes and we tramp around the planet experiencing life through these memories. and gravitating towards our likes...moving away from the dislikes.  This, he tells us, is Karma.  

You are the source of your life, your karma.

Inside Not Outside

So the impetus that keeps this maternal body going is not something outside me...it is inside.  It is all about how I carry these memories and if I am still allowing them (and my desire) to pull me here or there.  My children are living out their own fate based on their memories as well.  These memories, of course, are our samskaras.  And Yoga is all about freeing ourselves from them. We can be imprisoned in this type of "karmic debt" or we can be free of it by our willingness to be so, followed by a new impetus to move forward in a higher/deeper direction. Hmmm! 

There is so much to learn, so much wisdom to gain.  with every bit of challenge or suffering we witness. 

All is well! 

Sadhguru ( 2019) Does Good Karma Cancel Out Bad Karma.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnoB01msarw

Enjoying the Moment? Or resisting It?

 Start honoring and respecting that the moment in front of you has the right to be the way it is.

Michael A. Singer

You having a good time in your life?  Are you experiencing the  thrill of being alive on this planet that Singer often refers to as "God's idea of Disney World".  Some would answer, "Not really." and others might  say, "Yeah sure...I enjoy it sometimes...when things work out the way I want them to."  And most of us would agree that that is perfectly normal and okay: to live by a state of conditional happiness depending on what Life dishes out. If we get what we have decided is what we want and remain free of those things or experiences we decided we don't want...Life is a magical ride. Right? If, however, we don't get what we want (or get it and lose it)...or if we are bombarded by all the things we don't want...it is expected and normal that we "can't"  enjoy being alive and that we get pretty  P &^%$ ed off that Life is being such a jerk? Right? 

That is how most of us operate. Yet, it is also why most of us are so miserable or at least not enjoying every moment we are alive.  It isn't Life that is the problem.  Life is just doing what Life does...based on the milion moments and million events and forces that lead it exactly where it is as it unfolds in front of us. Few or any of the reasons things are the way they are, have anything to do with us. (Life isn't designed to please us.)  It is our preferences, our desires, our aversions, our ideas of how it should be that is the problem.  You get that right?

Wanting this moment right here and right now to be anything other than what it is...is a waste of precious life energy.  First of all, it isn't going to be anything other than what it is. Secondly, denying its reality by attempting to push away or grasp at other moments is resistance. Resistance leads to suppression and repression which leads to more samskaras and blockages( stuffing)  that prevent the joy inside you from flowing. It isn't what Life is giving you that is the problem...it is your resistance of it, that is. 

Instead of resisting and demanding Life be something other than what it is, ( believe me...it won't be quick to oblige lol) we need to start finding our joy right here and right now, with whatever is unfolding. We need to let go of our desires and aversions and see the magic and beauty in all of it: 10,000 joys as well as the 10,000 sorrows. 

Joy comes from within...we need to open up to it by not closing to what Life is giving us to observe and  experience.

Hmm! I don't know about you but I want to enjoy, not suffer through, the remaining years I have on this planet! 

All is well. 

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( July 27, 2023) Enjoying Your Time on Earth. https://tou.org/talks/

The Higher Relationship

 I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship.  I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.

Gandhi

Well Gandhi's request above is the highest form  we can hope to achieve in relationships and should be the vows uttered between most brides and grooms, between parents and children, between true friends between Guru and student, or  between anyone in what the  Course would refer to as a "special relationship". 

There is so much to consider about relationships and I am going to write more about this in the near future. ...but the big point we need to remember is that there is a deeper and higher purpose for relating other than what the romantic comedies on Net Flix teach us.  Our happiness and satisfaction in life  is never really about  the other person, nor is the happiness we attain in a relationship ever really about what the other person does or doesn't do.  

Huh? 

Well when we are still trapped by ego identification and the needs of "little me"  we look to the other "special" people in our lives to meet our "needs" .   In order to meet our needs they must meet or match the model we have of how they should be, based on our conditioned judgements and preferences. We are happy and in love, possibly believing we are reveling in the glow of our "soul mates",  when they are fitting beautifully into the model...but as soon as they do or say something that is not a part of our model, or even opposed to it...we freak... They and what they do become wrong, or bad. We have relationship conflict.  Many of us will even end our relationship at this point because it doesn't feed ego and its idea of how it should be. The problem is not the other person and what they do or don't do ...it is our need for models based on preferences and what we think this other person should be doing for us that is the problem.

Ram Dass, in the below linked podcast, reminds us we are all just " mechanical run off of old karma"trying to find our way back to Oneness ( whether we know it or not).  In order to work off our own karma, find our way back to the Highest Source, we need to let other people manifest into who they are in their own way...not in the way it suits "me" .  Allowing, accepting and honoring the divinity in each person despite their mechanical run off has little to do with them and everything to do with us. 

Hmm! So much more to say here but I will leave it at that.

All is well in my world. 

Ram Dass/ Be Here Now Network ( Sept, 2016) Episode 17- The Yoga of Relationships. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJXTyfa-cy4&t=986s

Learning to Let the Human Part of Experience Go

Devote your Life to something much greater than your little self

Michael A. Singer ( somewhat paraphrased??...not sure)

Are you at the point of your learning where you can appreciate and honor every experience Life hands you as a gift? Where you can recognize and be in awe of everything that unfolds in front of you even if it is an illness, a "loss" , and accident or a "broken heart"? Have you returned, yet, to the natural state of who you are?  Is your body expressing wellness? Is your mind expressing freedom from negativity, resistance, reactivity, judgement etc? And is your soul expressing the lightness and free flow of inspiration and creativity , love and joy as sat chit ananda because it has been unburdened of the samskaras personal mind has buried it under? 

Big questions, I know,  but whether we know it conceptually or not this is where we are heading and this is where we want to be as human beings.  We are more being than human and the process of realizing that and living that is our mission...(if there is such a thing as a purpose or mission to this existence). 

I am obviously not there yet.  But I did decide to focus more on the "being"  part of this life I have been given than the the "human" part.  I know I cannot deny the "human" in me.  I see the very active ego...the body I am in...the personality etc...that make me human but I am starting to realize that is such a tiny part of who I am.  It seemed like all I was, for decades, becasue it was all I was focusing on with my narrow angle lense but I am beginning to see how small it is, and what I have been neglecting to see when I was so focused on "me". There is so, so much more. Hmm!

That is my sadhana, my practice, my learning, now...to remove the addictive and restrictive attention from this human "me" and place it more on the "being" beneath these mind made concepts.  I want to return to the natural state of who I really am.

It is a process, let me tell ya, but I am getting there.  I really, really am.  I hope you are too.

All is well 

Inspired By: 

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( July 24, 2023) Working at the Root- Releasing Your Inner Problems. https://tou.org/talks/

The Beautiful Phenomena of Aging

 Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.

David Bowie

On my 60th birthday, instead of resisting, I find myself amazed with the beautiful phenomena of aging. I look at myself in pictures recently taken and see for sure the wrinkling of the skin, the greying of the hair, the cushioning around the waist ( that I affectionately refer to as my "estrogen fanny pack") but I also see an amazing being who has matured and grown past her identification with roles, and body image,  and her need to be "somebody" .  Though the personality and some of those ego things are still clinging and hanging around...for the most part I see so much  growth when I look at that 60 year old version of "me". 

At one time I feared aging and how it would disrupt the perfect image I wanted others to have of me.  Now it is like, "I care so much less about what you think of me than I used to."...that is very freeing.  Each wrinkle, each body change...I now look at with a certain degree of awe and curiosity, "Oh...wow! Look at that! This body is decaying as it is natural for it to do at this point of its existence.  Isn't that cool! Wonder what will happen next! " 

This all makes me realize that I am advancing away from this "thinking about life rather than being life" thing I have been doing most of my life.  I am stepping away from the effects of my somebody training, as Ram Dass refers to it in the below linked podcast.  I am becoming the person I always should have been. 

So cool, so grateful!

All is well.

Ram Dass Here/ Now Network- Episode 16- Little Schmoos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXiLYfa-vzE

Freedom From Self 2

 I answered this same question...again.  As one approaches 60 memory and recall is delayed lol. Anyway it offers a different take.

All is well!

Stinking Thinking

 

Thinking is more stinking than drinking....

Sufi Sam

Heaviness on the Soul

I woke up, for all kinds of reasons at 4 a.m..  I felt the "stink of think" , I guess.  Mind wanted to go to all kinds of outer world reasons for my waking up but I reduced it all to a "heaviness on my soul" rational. It then  went from a very quick and nonproductive , "What do I do to get rid of this heaviness?"  to a, "Why do I have this heaviness on my soul?"  And I knew, from my understanding of Yoga, it was all to do with mind. My puny personal mind, with all its reactions to what is going on around "me ", and its ingrained desire to do something, anything, to make "me" feel okay inside, was sitting heavily on "my"  soul! It has been in the way of me seeing or experiencing anything else.  It was in the way of Self.

Consciousness Distracted Away from Self by "Me"

The Self...this beautiful spacious mind... perfect consciousness...the one I share with the universe... soul...has been polluted by what Patanjali would refer to as mental modifications: ideas of "me", "my" dislikes and dislikes, this perception  and belief that 'little me' wasn't getting what it wanted from out there,  and the need to fix that. These are the typical problems of the personal mind. The trigger that poked the personal mind and stirred it up (when I almost had it down for a nap)was what is going on around me: situations and others I know I cannot control and fix but that are hovering around the 5 foot 4 bit of space I have been allotted to experience Life through.  This external world that has been surrounding this body and personal mind  I call "me" over the last few days has been very chaotic. So many circumstances, so many behaviours and expressions of pain from others, so many thoughts, so many feelings arising  in reaction to these circumstances....so right there in my face, demanding that I deal with them.  And on top of that  I had the experience of a "hurting heart" and a "troublesome mind" to deal with. Mind was so heavy as it sat there, plopped down on top of my spacious , precious soul. I couldn't see anything else. 

Don't Ask the Mind to Fix What It Has Broken...

So when I awoke in the wee hours of morning I, by  habit,  went right to my mind  and asked, "Why? Why am I so heavy ?"  Mind came up with so many events, circumstances, past and present,  to convince me that  it is all external. With some direction from the deeper part of me, squished beneath the weight, mind  condensed that all up to "You are so heavy because you  never seem to get what you want or need.  Your life is and has been so challenging."  Even the deeper part of me was questioning why there was so many challenging external issues to deal with.  It  asked this crazy, broken, overworked  mind to figure that one out. Mind, doing what it is programmed to do, dug down into its problem solving cupboards and came up with things like, "You are either such a mess inside, you are projecting a mess out there;  or it must be your karma debt or something that you are paying off. There has to be some reason why you are where you are in terms of circumstance etc" 

Meditate Instead.

 Mind was doing its best to answer and I  wanted, again by habit, to follow mind along that path but instead I sat up ( at what is believed to be the best time to meditate (between 4-7 am) ). I meditated. Instead of giving my overworked mind more "problems" to solve, more questions to answer (when really it is not capable of answering anything in a wholesome way)...I decided to focus on something other than "what mind was doing in reaction to my challenging and problematic life. " I brought my attention to  breath and to the sound of waking  robin song out there.  The mind was still heavy and demanding, weighing down on my soul, and attempting to pull me away in the habitual way it does with all the reasons from "out there" that were leading to this heaviness.  I had to keep reminding myself..."just thinking...just thought" and once I caught myself following my broken personal mind along these stories and thought streams, I brought myself back to breath and the lovely music that was getting louder and louder outside my window.  My mantra was, "I can relax into this until it passes through. I can relax into this until it passes through." 

More Stinking than Drinking

I relaxed and  eventually "the disturbance" did pass through me and out of me through the tears I cried and the conscious breaths I breathed out. I meditated maybe for forty minutes or an hour, and throughout it all I went back and forth from the personal mind to the universal mind.  I would be focusing on something far greater than "my problematic me" mental modification. Then I would slip into thought streams and get carried away.  I would wake up in these streams of story and narrative, and I would crawl out,  focusing again on my breath and the robin song....until I slipped again.  The process involved a lot of slipping back into the personal mind and a lot of crawling out into the universal one. 

Bring Your Attention to What is Underneath 

It is all about where we put our attention, right? When I first woke up my attention was on my personal mind, this "little me" and its likes and dislikes, the heaviness that sat on my soul blocking the natural flow of peace, joy, love and bliss. As long as I was focusing on this heaviness, I couldn't see anything else. Consciousness tends to focus on that which is the noisiest...the squeaky wheel. There is nothing noisier, Singer reminds us, than ego with its  hurting heart and  disturbed mind.  That is why it is constantly getting our attention, pulling us away from peace which naturally exists below these mental modifications.  When we focus on ego, consciousness does not see itself there beneath it.  The focus becomes so narrow, so constricted and our life 'experience' becomes the same.  As long as I was focusing on the blob of ego trouble that was sitting on top of  Self, I couldn't see or experience anything beyond ego's heart and mind. This heaviness just sat right there in the middle of my consciousness blocking the view of the spaciousness  that is always there beneath it all. I needed to take my attention of it.

I knew better than to try to stop the mind, beat it off or reprimand it for doing what I asked it to do. I just knew that focusing on it was the problem and removing my attention from it was the answer. Once we remove attention from it...we free souls so the natural flow of who we really are can emerge. We purify the mind, by removing our attention from the veil of personal mind, to get to the purity of Self. 

Hmm! 

All is well in my world. 

The purified mind is no different than the Self.

Rama Krishna

Michael A. Singer ( July 23, 2023) Going Beyond the Distraction of the Ego Mind. https://tou.org/talks/ 

Welcome to "My" Classroom

 Once again...welcome to my house. Come freely; go safely and leave something of the happiness you bring.

Bram Stoker, Dracula

Over 100 readers daily again.  I do not know what is up with that. lol I mention I am back down to zero readers one day and the next I have over 100...mention I have 500 readers another day and the next day down to 1. I am riding the wave,  I guess...up and down...as we do through Life. All good.

Welcome readers, whoever you may be!  I can't see you and I am not sure of your intentions. Not sure if you slipped into the back row of the classroom to hide out or by mistake.  "You mean this isn't Advanced Calculus 101?" (Believe me...I am no math teacher!) Maybe you are looking to gain an "easy credit" and couldn't care less about what I had to say.  Hate to disappoint you...no credits offered here. Or maybe you registered for this course because you liked the title and thought "Man, yeah.  I can get into that!" Regardless, just know that I have no more right to be up here in front of the classroom than you have.  I am more of a student teacher than a full fledged tenured professor. So take whatever I say with a grain of salt.  Ask yourself, "Does that make sense to something inside me?" That is what it is all about, right? You learning from you. If I do anything..I  just point you, I hope, inward. 

Regardless of why you are here, thank you for stopping by. Make yourself at home. 

All is well. 

. 

Get Over Yourself Already!

Until you are done with your relationship with self, you will have no relationship with God. 

Michael A. Singer

Singer tells us, in the below linked video, that when we are so focused on this "me" we think we are, and all its likes and dislikes, this irrational need to give it what it wants,  and figuring out how to control everything "out here" so it can feel safe and okay on the six foot spot of earth it takes up...we are ignoring God.  Wayne Dyer once said that Ego...was an acronym for Edging God Out. And that is what ego tends to do...well what our focus on it does. Because it really isn't the ego's fault...egos will be egos, doing all kinds of silly things...but for some reason our consciousness is staring at this individual ego we created and call "me", with  all its drama as if watching a really bad, but really addictive, soap opera on TV.  We are so glued to this small  screen and what happens to the main  character on it...we don't see everything else that is happening on this planet, or in this universe.  Our idea of an individual  life is that soap opera.  It becomes, "all about me!"  

We are just one of eight billion screens or human lives, one of trillions and trillions other forms of life ...on one small planet in one galaxy of 30 billion.  Come on! How can we be the only thing to focus on? Yet, here we are thinking we are the sun the solar system is rotating around.  How crazy is that?

Now, God...however you see God...created this universe, right?  It had to come from some Source...so yes He/ She /It created us too...but we were not the only things created.  Why do we pray to God as if we were? (If we pray that is).  "Please God make this or that thing turn out this or that way for "me"". If our prayers are answered, we are grateful and our faith in a loving God is strengthened.  If they are not answered to our exact specifications...we feel cheated and see God as an unfair and unkind Source.  Imagine.  We can't seem to see the infinite amount of other things God is taking care of other than us and the space we take up. As if our lives and how they turn out, in the form of circumstances, is all this Great Being has to take care of. Come on! We are here for a blink of an eye in eternity...in comparison to the 4.5 billion years the earth has been around ... 80 years is a pretty short time span, right? It isn't all about "me" and the more we buy into that idea that it is, the farther and farther we get away from God...the less of Life we get to truly experience. 

We need to train our minds, our consciousness, to stop staring at these little selves. We need to redirect the  gaze elsewhere.  Only then will we see and be aware of all the joy and all this sorrow this Life entails...not just for us but for everyone and everything! The moment consciousness stops staring at "me", with all its likes and dislikes, that is freedom from suffering, Trying to appease the "me" is what is causing all our unease with Life.  When we break this addictive and distracting focus, we are free. That is enlightenment!! That is peace. 

Whether we know it on the conceptual level or not, we want a relationship with God.  It is who we are! But we cannot see that beauty and that magnificence behind the wall we built with ego...a wall we keep building, protecting, decorating.  God is and always was behind that wall we are staring at and in order to reconnect, we need to remove the wall.  Singer reminds us that there is only one way to be okay: "Get over yourself!" Our focus on "me" is the wall!

Hmm! Something to think about. 

All is well in my world.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( July 21, 2023) Getting Real. https://tou.org/talks/

A little on Shakti

 

If a person realizes his position and stays in his own self, things that are to happen will  happen. Things that are not to happen will not happen. The shakti that is in the world is only one. All these troubles arise if we think we are separate from the shakti.

Ramana Maharshi

What is Shakti? 

Despite their imperfect appearance, ( I look a bit like death on a stick in this one), these videos involve a great impromptu exercise...no preparation, no time to think...Goal: just answer a "deep"  question and answer it within ten minutes. No editing!  The answers and the video quality are never perfect, and either am I as the answerer :) That is a part of the point. It can't be about ego.  Knowing that my readership has gone from 500/day to 0 soothes my still clinging ego a bit. It is all about sharing the learning that comes from the deepest part of me....and not about how I appear as a"me".

All is well

Healthy Desire and Manifesting?

 The universe is full of abundance and opportunity. All we have to do is acknowledge what is available, believe in ourselves and take action. 

Dalai Lama

Is there such thing as healthy desire or healthy manifesting?

Going back to the questions I committed myself to answering over the next little while, I find myself pondering the answer for this one. 

Is there such thing as healthy desire?  We know that desire /preference is the root of all suffering.  We got that, right? Suffering comes when  these individual ideas of self we created  get in the way of Life...It comes from attempting to step up as an ego, a self concept, in an attempt to control something we will never be able to control so it suits us better as these egoic self concepts of "me". Desires are based on attachments and expectation we have about how life should be in order for us to be okay as these "little mes". 

Now with  so called "manifesting" , it is all about the feeling we get when we have these things, right? Not so much about what it is we are trying to manifest.  We are to focus on feeling what it would be like to have these things. For example, it is not the wealth...not even the sense of financial security we get upon the visualization of having the wealth we are trying to manifest ...it is security in general, of having enough,  the feeling of worry free peace...right?  The "wealth" is simply a tool for getting us there, for opening us up to what is inside us.  So what if we just desire...attempt to manifest through visualization..."peace, security, a sense of having and being enough" ...is that healthy?  And then of course we need to realize that  what we want and seek...does not come from  "out there".  Though material wealth may come from the external world..."peace, security, a sense of having enough" is internal...just a matter of tapping into it.  How do we tap into it? We open up.  

How do we open up? Sometimes a pleasant experience like  a sunset  or manifesting wealth may open us up. But the real opening up comes from the effort we put into not closing...not closing when it rains...not closing when we have no money in our external experience. 

Opening up is healthy.  What is unhealthy is being  attached to the thing that opened us up as if it were the magic key.  The real key is not in manifesting pleasant experiences but the willingness to do the work on ourselves so we stay open to what is already inside us and to what is in front of us. The sunset and the wealth are pleasant but insignificant really. There is nothing right or wrong about experiencing them.  Like all things on the material plane...they are impermanent...they will  come and they can go. We can enjoy them but if we become attached to them, seeking them as the source of our happiness and sense of being okay etc...then that can become unhealthy pretty quickly. What happens when it is there time to leave?  If we feel we need them in order to open or stay stay open...if we feel we need to  close when we encounter their polar opposites...rain and poverty...to be okay inside...than that is unhealthy.  

Okay, I write and there is this hope and dream still percolating in me that I am working on diminishing.  I would like to be published. I would like the financial security, the open door to teaching, sharing and connecting  that I assume it will bring me. Why? Because I believe publication will allow me to "make it as a writer". I want that feeling of worry free peace, of accomplishment, of knowing that I am doing what I am here to do, of enthusiasm, joy I still mistakenly believe "making it as a writer"  will give me.  It is the feeling I want...not whether or not some editor somewhere decides to publish my stuff! I don't write for that reason..I don't.  I write because something in me wants to come out on the paper...it is a purely internal motivation...The  remains of the ego still clinging tells me to use it though...use it to get what it wants. Ego says successful writing can bring external things like...money, recognition, opportunity etc.  I don't need those things...I want the feelings of peace and joy I assume having them will bring. "Go the long indirect materialized route to inner satisfaction" lol....is what ego is telling me to do with my writing.  When I simply get joy from writing. Why? Because I am open when I write.  I am open to that amazing flow of Shakti within me Hmm! 

Desire and manifesting  is still confusing for me, as this writer with ego still around.  I wrote my sister's story for the joy of writing it, for her...it was done with internal motivation.  But yesterday I spent grueling hours getting a sample ready to submit...and I don't know if it became an ego thing then or not.  If I am  desiring and attempting to manifest a publication here, is that ego or spiritual?  Is it okay if it is both? My major goal right now...is self realization and the end of suffering I assume it will bring...not publication.  But does that mean, I don't submit, that I don't attempt to publish?  Can the submission process be a part of my practice?  I am learning to detach from outcome.  Once my submission  is out...I let go. That is a great practice. 

But what about if we desire to get beyond these attachments and expectations to whatever we attempt to manifest, to end suffering once and for all?  What if we want to manifest a higher state of being with Source, a realization of true Self.  That is a still a desire isn't it? To me, that is the only healthy desire to pursue.

Hmm! I know I am rambling but this is a question I still need to ponder for a while.

All is well

Life is just wind

 

Life is just wind...

let it blow through.

Don't guard the doorway of  the flimsy  house you built,

 selecting what shall enter and what will not.  

Don't waste your energy fretting over 

which of nature's elements  to allow in 

and which to slam the door on 

in fear of what these winds might do.

Let it all in...

Life is just wind,

let it blow through.

Whether the  fingers tapping at the shutters

belong to  a hurricane, threatening destruction,

or to a soft breeze bringing comfort...  

open up...

let it all in. 

Life is just wind...

let it blow through.

Open the doors to your heart and let Life enter,

let it blow in whatever way it needs to blow,

let it do whatever  it needs to do,

and then watch it leave

taking all the stuffed and stale with it

through the open windows of  acceptance.

Stand there and watch,

stand there and feel all that it brings with it

and all that it takes away.

Let it all in...

Life is just wind...

let it blow through

Bend with it, 

don't tense up  against it,

for it is the branch that resists the wind that breaks.

Refuse to be that branch. Refuse to break. 

Bend. Relax. Allow. 

If Life  brings soothing comfort, 

relax, allow and be grateful,

if it brings pain and destruction, 

relax, allow and be grateful...

take what ever it gives you to God

and it will do the same

with what it takes from you. 

Let it all in...

Life is the wind....

let it blow through.

Let it cleanse away the cobwebs and purify you

Let it blow away the walls of this house you built on sand

if it so needs to...

you are not the dust and debris,

you are not this house you guard so vigilantly .

You are the wind...

let it all in.

Life is the wind...

let it blow through.

Stay open,

so the  wind can blow  right through you.

Allow it to take whatever it needs to take

to get you to God.. 

Let it all in...

An imperfect take on what I heard from the below  podcast. 

All is well.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( July 18, 2023) Turning Resistance to Acceptance. https://tou.org/talks/

• 
  

Manifesting Light with Hope

Hope is being able to see there is light despite all of the darkness.

Desmond Tutu

The Lure of Hope

Hmm!  I have gotten to the point of  my learning where I seriously began to question the value and the unwholesome lure of hope in "my" little version of  life.  I have spent my life, until the point where I began to awaken,  addicted to hope.  I spent my moments in my head dreaming and fantasizing about what life would be like for me once I got this or that thing, achieved this or that status or state, was loved by this or that person.  I was so pulled into the visualization, positive affirmation and the manifesting culture.  It was like I was surviving the now by telling myself, "Okay I am not that happy now but I will be, I will be once I....".  

I had "hope" for some something better up there.  It filled me with a certain energy...a certain positive lift. Still, I was caught in one big thought stream about the future. And we know that the future is nothing more than an "idea" right?  The future never comes.  When tomorrow comes it is today! 

Hope is Not a Spiritual Thing 

I heard the great teachers speak about this as an unwholesome  way of "thinking" ...keeping us from experiencing the only Life there truly is....the "now" and it finally sunk in.  I put away my vision boards and my positive thinking sticky notes. I started settling in to...appreciating and honoring "what is" and not asking it to be any more or any different than what it is.  

This is good right?  This is a healthy way to approach Life as a yogi right? 

But...

It did bring peace, for sure. But it, this "accepting what is",  also brought me down into the negative focus  of what was actually happening and unfolding  around me. Life circumstance was challenging.  I mean, I more than accepted it and all the challenges but what was, was dark and heavy, it seemed , with so little light. My energy levels went down with this focus on this challenging "now".  There seems to be, without hope, no end to this challenge and dark time. So, as I accept and find peace with what is...my energy levels are low.  This "me" that is still around experiencing this...is lacking in the energy, enthusiasm, light, fun, bliss that hope once brought.  The thoughts are negative. This "now",  as necessary and beautiful as it is in its challenges and difficulties,  is not "fun".  I am not "enjoying" it.

 Hope , though it was actually more of  an ego mind game, an escape from this moment and what was, taking me to some future fantasy that never truly existed...did put a little "zip" into my day to day experience. It lifted me from low energy into a light that was "up there somewhere". It took my thoughts from the negative to the positive.  Focusing on the things I mistakenly thought would be responsible for my happiness, allowed me to experience happiness even if it was only fantasy based.  I mean, I know the cause for happiness and unhappiness is internal not external!  That it is all about whether I am opening or closing  but for some reason when I looked at the house with glass windows on the ocean shore that I pasted on a vision board...I opened. It was easier to open.  I felt happy!  It is not the house that I wanted or needed.  It is the happiness...that sense of being okay where I was...of being fulfilled, at ease...the opening up experience ...that I want and need. Hope about being able to manifest happiness into my life, regardless of what  is truly opening or keeping my heart open, allows for an opening to more positive energy. When I continuously stare at what is...which is for me right now...mostly dark and challenging ( that is the reality  of my life situation),  my focus is negative, my energy is downcast and negative. I need to raise that focus, lift my eyes to a light that I can't quite see right now.  That is where hope comes in. For the longest time, I felt there was something wrong with me for feeling the way I felt without hope.  Wanting to be a true yogi, I repressed and suppressed my desire for hope in my life! 

So can hope serve a purpose for the yogi who realizes that the only Life is happening right here, right now? 

Michael A. Singer in the below linked podcast tells us it does.  He mentions that hope , at a certain beginning level of our awakening, can lift us from negative focus to positive focus. A positive focus is always more wholesome than a negative focus. ...hopes and dreams are not spiritual but they are better than negative thinking. So we can use hope and our dreams of manifesting something better in difficult times to lift the energetic focus and rise above the negativity.  Once we are established there, we won't need hope any more.  We simply learn to accept, appreciate and relax into what is. 

The Cautious Use of Hope

The point to remember though, is not to get so attached to hope and a future focus that we are following the ego away from "what is" or from Self again.  Yes,  hope serves a purpose in the unevolved mind of bringing us from negativity to a certain energetic positivity.  It allows consciousness to focus upward instead of downward. It can help to open us a bit...but it is only a temporary remedy. Like the pain medication one takes  so they can find enough relief to get back to the business of living, we can use hope to get back to the business of awakening. One doesn't want to get addicted to that pain medication, though,  and start living for it! One doesn't want to become addicted to hope.  It is a temporary fix only!

Hmm! I feel this tremendous relief knowing that I do not have to stay focused on this darkness of my present situation.  I see it, I accept it, I embrace it for all that it gives me but it is okay if I look ahead a bit to where there might be a bit more light.  I will every now and again think about  that house on the ocean....or see myself doing a book signing for a recent publication...or standing on a stage sharing all this learning with others, for teh feeling it gives me, knowing full well that the actual thing I want may never materialize.  That is okay...if it is ego derived I don't want it to happen. What will materialize with my awakening...is that feeling of peace, joy, enthusiasm, love and wholeness I get when I see myself there.  That open heart and being is what I truly hope to manifest!  That is where the light comes from. 

All is well.

Michael. A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( July 16, 2023) Giving Great Meaning to Every Event. https://tou.org/talks/

Hooked on "It is all about Me"

 Transcendence gets you beyond ego. If you go beyond ego, you see this all in a more decent perspective and you start to put the pieces together.  We haven't done that yet. Not as a civilization.

Edgar Mitchell

As an astronaut, Mitchell saw first hand what Michael Singer often uses to bring us back to reality: the vastness of the universe and how small we are in it. Our ego and all the problems it creates in its attempt to bring everything back to "me, my, and mine" is statistically insignificant in the big scheme of things.  Mitchell saw that clearly when he was in outer space returning form the moon and looking down at the little blue planet we call earth. It was his moment of awakening from this addictive focus so many of us are trapped in, a focus on "little me"  and its likes and dislikes at the exclusion of all other things. 

Our consciousness, which is so great and so expansive, becomes contracted and small when we focus it on our petty egos.We begin to believe we are this ego and nothing more...that everything is about "me" ...when there is so much more besides us to focus on. When we stare at ego we diminish what our consciousness can do.  We can learn to stop focusing on it ...we can learn to focus on something greater: What is and the source of what is?   That is our purpose in life: to experience each moment that unfolds in front of our body's and minds, accepting them, appreciating them and loving it all unconditionally.  We can only do that if we focus beyond what ego wants us to focus on and see how God is experiencing each moment through our consciousness. It is not about "me" or ego, it is about God.

All is well in my world

Michael. A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( July 16, 2023) Giving Great Meaning to Every Event. https://tou.org/talks

Manifesting to a Yogi

 But when from the depths of his heart, man desires something more lasting than wealth, something more real than material power, the wave will recede. Then peace will come, joy will come, light will come. 

Meher Baba

Starting to answer the questions asked a few entries ago. Imperfect for sure but there is an answer in there somewhere.

All is well.

Purest Service?

 What is the purest service?  When one knows they cannot serve God and man [ego] at same time...just serve the God in every being.

Ram Dass ( somewhat paraphrased)

The podcast below is speaking mostly to serving the God in every man...be they a thriving capitalist or a starving refuge, an inmate  accused and strongly sentenced for a mild crime or the accuser ( individual and collective), the political activist trying to change the status quo or those identified with and invested in  the status quo, and in those enlightened beings or those far from evolved ones. I like to extend that idea of service to all beings and all things. God is everywhere, right?

I  want to serve humanity for sure.  We do that best by taming our minds and our reactivity, putting away our judgements and preferences and simply recognizing the God in everyone. 

I want to take this approach to all beings. My crows are back with their young and it it is such a pleasure to serve them.  They attempt to wake me up each morning by squawking and cawing outside my window...(yes, they know which window is mine). I will sometimes oblige them then and other times I won't depending on how badly I need the sleep. When I do feed them...either because they are out there waiting or I call them...it is a joy to serve with just a few cat food kibbles and to watch them collect my meager offerings.  There is one of the parents I seem particularly connected to...was here before he/she mated and had a family.  Well after feeding time is over and the others are gone, I will sit outside and this crow will sit very, very close to me on the wire above my head and we will just sit there together for quite a while.  (Was close to an hour last evening).  It is so cool.  I see and serve  the God in this crow and he/she, with their presence, sees and serves the God in me. 

All is well.

Ram Dass/ Be Here Now Network ( 2017?) Ram Dass Here and Now-Episode 13- Fast Forward https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4wJttWjJkA

The Ego is Not a Guru!

 

The ego cannot be your spiritual advisor.

Michael A. Singer

I often write about this and ask myself and others this question: "Who is asking this of you: Spirit or ego?" Before you give into  an inclination to act, speak or simply plan in your head...ask yourself who is doing the asking. Is it your "little me", your ego mind, your concept of a personal self wanting you to use this body for something or the deeper I, the intellectual mind, and this that exists beneath the personal mind you created? 

Singer reminds us in the below linked podcast that there is a big difference between the personal mind and the intellectual mind, between what you, as an idea of "me, my and mine",  wants and what God wants. 

The personal mind, yet to be purified, is clouded with the root of all suffering:  preference.  The intellectual mind is pure...offering an open door for the  bodies we are in to express it through our inspiration and creativity. When we operate from it we are taken to a higher place of beauty, joy, love.  We recognize our Oneness in everything and we accept and embrace what is.  There is nothing we have to "do". When we operate from ego mind we are constantly grasping  or pushing away...struggling to make the world suit our egos.  Following ego's mixed up directions as to what we should do in order to be okay to our own peril. We are anxious, stressed, unhappy opening and closing our hearts to the beauty of Life. We suffer!

So why do we have a personal mind, an ego mind?  

We created it. We, as a piece of consciousness,  decided to look down at our bodies and everything going on within them . We got so focused on them we became addicted. This addicted focus led to the creation of an ego mind whose purpose was to protect this thing we were focusing on. ..making it feel okay by selecting and deciding what things "out here" would keep it safe and what things wouldn't. It takes so much energy, effort, focus to make the "me" okay. We got so lost in doing that we forgot that we weren't this thing we were in...simply borrowing it for the time being so God, consciousness could experience itself through it.  We forgot who we were and eventually the veil of ego mind became so thick we couldn't see through it. We became, in our minds only, the "me". We then make most of our choices based on what ego says.It often drowns out  the higher voice within us.

Hmm! We focus on ego and its neediness...99% of our thoughts are related to this "Me, my, and mine".  We focus on those thoughts and obey them to our own peril.  It is an addiction.  Ego is an addiction. To stop suffering we need to get through the veil of ego mind to who we really are. 

Ego cannot guide us to true lasting peace and happiness.  It can only make us crazy! If the choices we make serve the ego, we are going to suffer.

We remove ego's addictive hold over us  by becoming aware of it  as the problem. Then we watch our preferences and observe how they do not serve us. We relax into Life, accepting it for what it is  without the need to make it different. We seek to go deeper beyond preference, beyond the ego to who we really are. We make our choices from there. If it doesn't serve the ego, what we do will serve the spirit, the true Self.  And that is the way to true peace, happiness and Love.

All is well.

Michael A, Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( July 13, 2023) Growing Through the Layers of Mind. https://tou.org/talks/

In the Absence of Signs and Wonders

 So Jesus said to them, "Unless ye see signs and wonders you will not believe."

John 4:48 ESV

Another question was asked to me by someone who calls themself an annihilist. The question was in regard to my practice and belief that it is the way to go.  She has been watching me practice everyday and was looking for a good debate.  Part of her, I also see, is looking for more than scientific skepticism. She wants a little bit of what I am seeking but her analytical and protective mind needs proof. 

"How do you know this is the way to go? How do you know there is something beyond the body? Beyond form when it cannot be proven scientifically? " 

She asked me the question and I realized I didn't know how to answer.  I started by answering with the things I picked up from others: " Science is not developed enough to measure the unseen...so it cannot prove that it does not exist ."

"Yes...I know that just because it has not been proven yet to be true doesn't mean it isn't true but how do you know it is true?"

"It is an internal thing, not an external thing. Well Yogis have been looking into this for over 5000 years and came up with these realizations through inner practice's. They went beyond the body and mind to discover what was there. So and so said..." 

That didn't feel right and she quickly referred me back to the question...

"How do you know? "

"Well...it isn't about knowing conceptually...it is about feeling and experiencing it. I have had glimpses of the sense of experiencing and being in this truth rather than knowing it so I take this path."

She countered, "This peace you felt. How do you know it just wasn't a biological processing of the nervous system and little to do with the thing you are looking for? How do you know there is something beyond biology at play here?"

I referred her back to the who is watching inside the body question..."Who is observing all that is going on, all that we are thinking and feeling? Who is witnessing the body and its processes? "

She countered with "The brain...the brain is watching." She told me the mind was only a part of the brain and therefore physical.

I ask her where  thought and feeling are found in the  brain on dissection?

She said she didn't know but told me Petscans will show how the brain is wired and the electrical currents that take place when thoughts happen.  Again, she argued to it all being biological.

I agreed that there is amazing biological and miraculous processes going on inside the body. "Who or what  is responsible for them?"

Again she went back to biology and evolution...darwinian theory. "It's nature. Survival of the fittest and we, as body, evolve to these amazing capabilities.  There are no "miracles"...all things on this planet do the same...adapt for survival reasons. "

I tried the dream thing..."Well you do know that when you are sleeping you are still there even though in deep sleep there is nothing but emptiness but you know you were there.  Who was there when there was nothing...when senses and body were shut off? Consciousness survived the nothingness."

She told me that the brain is just physiologically wired to shut off so the body can sleep. Biology again.

And the debate went on and on.  The whole time I was answering her it didn't feel right. My answers felt untrue to the deeper part of me. They were ego answers and regurgitation of other thought.  I mean I know without doubt in my heart this is the way to go but I couldn't seem to explain why. That bothered me.

I eventually told her I could not argue this or even explain it really. "The knowing is not conceptual.  I just know.  When you are ready you will someday know too. "

We ended the debate there but it really left me thinking. "How do I know all this I have yet to fully experience to be true ?"

I have to let that question percolate in me too.  

Serendipity brought the below linked video to me where Ram Dass talked about this knowing beyond what science can prove, this knowing that there is something there beyond our physical plane of existence...beyond form. There are miracles and sometimes we need to see those miracles before we believe.  I wish for a miracle to show up in front of this person so she would know too. 

All is well. 

Ram Dass/ Be Here Now Network ( August 29, 2016) Episode 11- letting it all go.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoqDKsTA5GI

Thinking About the Highest Life

 The highest life you can live is when every moment that passes by you is better off becaus eit did.

Michael A. Singer

Thinking about a lot of things lately and am trying to bring those thoughts together. I have been thinking about this idea of "manifesting" and what it really means to a yogi. I have been thinking about desire and the lack of. I have been thinking about the need to accept and appreciate what is here and now.  I have been thinking about suffering and freedom from.  I have been thinking about yoga...true yoga.  I have been thinking about love...true love. I have been thinking about shakti. Hmm!

Well crazy lady how are you going to bring all that together? 

I am not sure how I am going to bring those questions/ideas all together. The quote above somehow says it all...they are all about serving the moment that unfolds in front of us, instead of seeking to be served by it.  I will trust that the universe has been assisting me with that realization by  what has shown up for me to listen to, read, and study, as well as the    life experiences it gave me to examine,  in the last few days. There seems to be an element of serendipity beneath all this that I can not quite  understand completely . I have been listening to Michael Singer and Eckhart Tolle; finishing off reading the Autobiography of a Yogi and listening to/ reading Ram Dass on the Here and Now Network and in his autobiography Remember Be Here Now.  I have been feeling the pull downward as those around me express their pain and I have been feeling the rush of relief and peace when they express their enthusiasm about whatever.  I have felt the rain and I have felt the sunlight (if only for a day lol).  I have experienced the heaviness of illness and the lift of energy when I felt better.  I have been consumed by "sloth and torpor"where nothing seemed to get "done"  and then hit with this energetic productivity yesterday where so much got done so easily. I experienced closing and I experienced being open. Yeah...there was a lot of teaching in the last few days. Well,  there is a lot of teaching everyday if we are open to it.

I think what I will do is create  questions based on those ideas and do my best to answer each one over time. I will just come back to them over the course of the next few days and see what I come up with.  (I may even  answer them in more depth  on videos later on).

Questions: 

• What does the idea of "manifesting" mean to a yogi?
• Is there any such thing as healthy desire or health manifesting?
• Is it important to accept and appreciate one's present circumstances even if they are very challenging or unwholesome?
• Is thinking about a future dream or goal really that problematic?
• Does freedom from suffering ever involve making physical changes to our present situations?
• Will I ever experience the true meaning of yoga? How do I teach yoga beyond the mat?
•  How important is romantic love to a yogi?
• What can one do to get that shakti to flow better? 

It feels funny to leave here with unanswered questions.  Mind...my mind especially, likes answers. But I think it is important sometimes to just sit with questions, to get beyond the minds tendency  to try to answer them right away conceptually.  Maybe if I just let them stew in here ...percolate...the answers I come up with will come from a deeper place. You think?

All is well.

Embodying the Unconditioned Consciousness

Greatness it to embody the unconditioned consciousness in this life time. 

Eckhart Tolle

I listened to the below interview with Eckhart Tolle this morning as part of my Sadhana.  I usually incorporate an idea of what I listen to, together  with what is going on in my head and  heart at the time, and I write my entry based on that. It is like panning for gold...one dips in then shakes the pan around looking for glittering stuff in the strainer. Collecting that which glitters and catches my attention, I put the other stuff back.

There were so many tid bits of wisdom in this interview.  It seemed like the whole strainer was golden and resonating with heart and head in this moment...so I found it challenging to leave much of it behind. 

This is what I got from the interview (Mostly a review of many of Tolle's teachings) :

• Life situations exist in time...Life itself exists in now
• In the present moment, the problem cannot survive
• suffering is resistance of the moment as it is...
• positive surrender is an uncompromising "yes" to the present moment, to what is...
• the ego loves to argue with what is
• what we call future is just an extension of our state of consciousness
• have to be aware of what your state of consciousness is  in which you face any situation
• Love is the recognition of Oneness...to recognize yourself in the other
• Without access to the vertical dimension nothing can satisfy you on the horizontal 
• when you are present "right action" arises spontaneously
• the power of now is the power of consciousness beyond the ego
• In the law of attraction...the number one habit that blocks it...is ...coming from a place of scarcity and neediness
• need to acknowledge abundance that is already here and now...appreciation...rather than focus on what we don't have.
• Appreciate the goodness of life that is already all around you
• the sun is the ultimate symbol of abundance...pouring out energy continuously never asking for even a thank you
• ...the universe is infinitely abundant
• when you notice something desirable do not ask "Why can I not have that?",,,just appreciate that it is in your sensory perceptions
• be thankful for the flow of life in you...made me think of Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching on the conditions for happiness
• Acknowledge the good things in life
• to own is secondary...there is something more important
• write down what you are grateful for each day.  I learned through my course at The School of Positive Transformation that research shows it is better to only focus on 1-3 things to be grateful for a  day 
• Kindness and giving genuinely (not out of obligation or to create an ego image) can help us to manifest and simply live happier lives
• Believe that you already have what you want and it will be given to you. How will it feel to have those things?...
• By focusing on the feeling of fullness you will manifest a feeling of fullness of life...of completeness
• Sometimes what you want to manifest will not manifest in the way ego wants...but the joy of coming from a place of fullness...feeling as if we have all we need and want ....will enrich our lives. 
• there is a glimmer of consciousness in everything, even in inanimate things ...so even material objects will tend to appreciate us and take care of us if we appreciate them and take care of them...
• Do not make it an ego thing...just appreciate the material things you have...like this computer...my tea pot,,,my phone and kindle 
• Make sure what you want is not what ego is seeking to enhance itself with...if it is an egoic endeavor it won't make you happy, at least not for long
• To the ego...nothing is ever enough
• Happiness can only happen if you are aligned with the present moment
• Realize you are consciousness...you are the universe realizing itself as consciousness
• Realize what you are not...the ego
• Changing the world will happen naturally and spontaneously once we wake up 
• Greatness is to fulfill your purpose by being apart of the evolving consciousness...
• The way you experience the world is always a reflection of your consciousness
• Realize the possibility of living without the suffering of the human mind in the way...We can do that with radical acceptance of the isness of now...

I know this isn't very creative but these truths are perfect as they are. Please watch the below video and be sure to show your appreciation to Lewis Howe for sharing it!

All is well

 Lewis Howes (July, 2023) Eckhart Tolle with Three Deadly Habits...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jPOkbLih1c

In the Midst of it All

 Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all.

The Buddha

I want to be like a giant tree. Man what would it feel like just to be able to rest in what is...not worrying about anything just standing there solid, stable , flexible in the midst of all the comings and goings?  Clinging to none of it.  Pushing away none of it. Just embracing everything as the amazing experience it is. 

Anyway, working on it!

All is well. 

The Energy Inside

The yogi's entire path is inside and the path is these energies..

Michael A. Singer

 I woke up this morning thinking about vibrational energy. More or less confined to bed yesterday because of a rough night with abdominal pain and subsequent dehydration ( I did get to the root of the pain I was experiencing over the last year in my left upper quadrant though),   I was listening to Ram Dass speak about energy.  

All we see and experience is energy vibrating at different rates.  Our thoughts are energy that vibrate faster than light so we cannot yet measure them with our gadgets in a lab...feelings are even faster.  In thoughts and emotions we have energies that are heavier bringing us "down"...meaning that when our consciousness follows them , It stays in the low energy vibration. There is a perceived absence of  light. We will then feel "low", physically  and mentally. And we have energies that are lighter bringing us "up"...when consciousness follows them and stays with those things we are vibrating at higher level. There is the experience  of light and "lightness"/ease. 

I obviously by my rambles about the dark night and malingering malignant moods , have been vibrating at the lower energy levels. The people around me are vibrating at that low energy level.  The whole house seems to be full of this low energy....thus my desire to escape it as if it were the cause of my experience of  low energy. It seems that this low energy state is impacting not only my mental health but my physical. I have had the experience of being physically incapacitated twice in as many weeks. It is so heavy!

Anyway, I awoke this morning with an intention to better understand vibrational energy in order to  lift the energy levels up in me and in this house.  In an attempt to lift the energy within me a bit, both for my sake and the sake of others around me, I began by doing  two guided meditations designed to lift vibrational energy.  Then I went to the "studying" component of my daily sadhana and opened up the Sunday talk from Michael A. Singer.  Guess what he was talking about? Energies.  Again there are the guiding hands of serendipity and synchronicity at play.

The funny thing was that I was thinking about how I could lift the vibrations externally.  Should I leave the house for a while?  Should I go out in the wilderness like a survivalists and consort with nature  in the purest of ways?  Should I simply sage my house? Maybe Fung shui it (or just clean it and get rid of junk)? Should I put the positive energy music  on throughout the day  like I used to?  Should I focus my thoughts on positive things?  Should I create a dreamboard of some kind so my vision and senses are focused on what is achieved at higher levels? Where can I go or what can I do to get the experience of more sunlight ( like it has been raining here with mostly persistent cloud cover for almost a month)?  What can I add to my life?  What can I get rid of? 

So I was thinking of all that when I opened up the podcast. I was beautifully reminded, however, that working with energy is purely an inside game.  It is not a game of choosing and selecting energy experiences "out there" that will improve our energy "in here"; it is not about grasping, clinging and pushing away;  and it is not about suppressing energy in the  name of "spirituality".  It is simply about letting the energies, in whatever form they are in, to just be...to come up to our conscious awareness when they are ready to do so, so we can "experience" them fully and then we let them go.  When I use thought to organize and control my energies, as I have been attempting to do,  I am not doing the yogic thing. All thought patterns are attempting to get [and keep] these energies together but the yogi doesn't get it together...they just let it all go. 

Hmm!  I will let the energies be and remain open to them coming up to my conscious awareness more fully. I might still sage the house though.  Even if all that does is get rid of the smell of wet dog. 

All is well 

Michael A. Singer /Temple of the Universe ( July 9,2023) Working With Your Inner Energies. https://tou.org/talks

Surviving

 To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Have this image of me as a survivalist on a mission to survive, and thrive in the uncharted forest of Yogananda's  "malingering malignant moods," or "the dark night of the soul".  

Alone

I am watching Alone,  a Netflix series about ten nature survivalists in this country's  borderline  artic, competing to see who is able to stick it out the longest in the harsh conditions they are encountering. They are encountering so many challenges from starvation to shelters catching on fire, from injury to loneliness.  What is needed beyond their survivalist know-how is a mental stamina, an ability to  fall back into their peaceful, calm centers no matter what happens "out there". I see many evolved beings on this program...those who have great connection and reverence for the environment and the other beings in it; those that have these non reactive mind spaces, (they seem to know how ego reaction would be detrimental to their physical survival ...they experience the emotion related to a setback and they so quickly let it go); and those that accept reality exactly as it is. I also see those who are so grateful for any tiny blessing that comes their way, whether it be a batch of berries they run across or a rabbit they are able to snare. Many feel great remorse for killing or harming anything  and express this remorse with their deep reverence and appreciation for the life they took. I also like that some speak about how being out there in the wilderness is much easier than struggling in the busy worlds they came from.  Something to be said about that. 

Surviving?

Anyway, as I am reminded of the challenges I am encountering now in this forest of "malingering malignant moods" (Mine and  those of the other beings in this forest...my present living situation)...I see myself as a survivalist. Though my circumstances are much better than those on the show,  I feel I am journeying through a dark night.  It is like I am stripped bare of all the things others seem to take for granted...moments of ease, lightness, distractions in the form of  fun and excitement, hope, a bit of abundance, happiness, laughter, entertainment, joy....as well as old tendencies and defenses I once used to get by with. ) My mission is merely to survive this because I know there is a great award waiting if I do...freedom from suffering. 

The Challenge

Like all the other 8 billion contestants,  I was plopped down on a specific  area on this globe for reasons I do not understand, an area with its own set of circumstances to endure,  and it is my job to make the best of where I landed and what I am given  in terms of both bounty and challenge.I am met with so many challenges in a day...many  minor, many not. I feel myself as "me" starving and wasting away as I get through everyday, (which is a good thing...we want to shed the excess weight  of"me" ... so the deeper Self can be experienced, right?). I continue to build and maintain my shelter ( my practice) amidst the harsh conditions ( a busy world that doesn't want to let me practice, it seems...so much other things to do just to get by) . Though I know it is an inner game, I hunt for any bit of light and blessing and peace and love  I can find "out there" to supplement teh growth occurring internally,  but the land seems barren, offering only tiny bits of what I am looking for. I am so appreciative, down on my knees appreciative, when I find these blessings to consume,  or when there is even a short reprieve from having to deal with the many challenges.  I feel great appreciation when  I find even a glimpse of what I am looking for but have to struggle to stay in my center when I don't. I am constantly dealing with the shelter issues, the food issues, my own body's demand for more, wild things I cannot control, the weather etc.  It seems that if things can go wrong, they go wrong again and again and again.  It is exhausting to have to deal with one thing after another all the time . On top of that I have to deal with a line of  suffering others who show up at my door. I want to feed and provide shelter for them,  but  for  reasons beyond what I can understand or control, they fight me. At the same time, I am weak and starving, barely getting by with so little resources to share but I give what I have to others before I feed myself.  That is not a true survivalist technique. Am I failing?

Failing?

 I feel like I am running out of the energy to deal with all this. I feel very much alone, yet I can't be alone.  I want to give up. The sky  is constantly dark and cloudy overhead and I tell myself if I could just experience  a bit of sun, just a bit more than what I am experiencing, it would motivate me more to keep going. Not finding the sun "out there"...I try to find it in my heart. Aditya Hridayam punyam sarv shatru bena shenam. 

Internal Reserves Versus External Challenge

I am constantly trying to build up  internal reserves. I fear, however, that the external demands out weigh my internal reserves at this point. It is tough. Yet, I am determined not to tap out! I tell myself I just have to hang on and muster through this dark night. God doesn't give us more than we can handle. If I keep practicing, it will get better inside me soon so it won't matter what happens out there. Sigh!

Be Prepared for the Moments of Weakness

That sounds so depressing, doesn't it? Not my intention to depress but to express what it feels like to be where I am at this part of the journey. I want to prepare you for what might happen as you progress on this journey. Just like the contestants report how after all the warnings they got about what it would be like out there before they took on the challenge,   no one ever told them about the "weakness" they would experience. It came as a shock to them.  There is a weakness we may experience as we make our way through the dark night of the soul.  It is best to be prepared for it when it comes so it doesn't overwhelm you.  I was a bit overwhelmed at first but am getting used to it now. :) 

From Striving to Thriving

So I keep going. I am surviving.  Soon, I am confident, I will be able to say I am thriving.

All is well.  

Doing "Right" with What Life Gives Us

 

What is given to us in this life time doesn't matter as much as what we do with it. 
Jack Kornfield

I always wonder if I am doing enough with all these challenging circumstances Life has handed me. I wonder if I am doing it "right" in terms of the eight fold path. I really I wondered that, through an experience I had a few evenings ago,  even though rationally I know I cannot fix other people or change their destiny.  I can support and encourage and be present but I cannot change anyone.  I know the only person I can control and work on is me. Working on me is all about letting go of "me" and its desire for things to be different than they are. I offer my best to the other when I am not in ego reactivity mode. 

I keep hitting this situation with this one individual where it is never enough or never "right" in the way I support and give in their time of need. ...according to them.  Of course, it is true. I am making oodles of mistakes, even judging and reacting some but I do not, no matter how much I reflect, see my reaction in the way they say it is. They spend so much time and energy, when they are at the point of their emotional nose dive, trying to convince me, themself  and anyone else who will listen about how unsupportive, judgemental, defensive  and uncaring I am being.  When they are calm and have let go of the grievances held against me for how "poorly I supported them in the time of need"...I couldn't be more loving...again, according to them. 

 

So anyway...I do not pray for Life to give me something different in this relationship challenge it has offered me. I don't pray that Life make this easier on "me" ( well, at least not often lol). Who is "me"? I do pray for the other person's recovery whole heartedly and I pray to stay open as much as possible as they progress on their journey ...to do "right" with this. 

It is challenging for this person that I am, who still many times gets distracted by my own stored mind stuff, these feelings inside "me",  and with what Life seems to be unfolding in front of me to stay open.  It is challenging not to feel these attacks and challenges  as "personal". Still I try to depersonalize it...to experience what is happening, not as  egoic "me" but as deeper Self. Individuals, still in the height of ego identificaton...so distracted by the mess in their own heads that they identify with it and can not see anything or anyone else, don't like when I attempt ( albeit imperfectly and often unsuccessfully) to put away my own ego.  Every attempt I make to fall back away from the drama of the situation and into the seat of the Witness so I can stay clear, calm and loving enough to handle it,  is seen as a shutting down and coldness by a certain other. 

"You are shutting down!" is the observed complaint. It is true. I need to detach somewhat so I do not react.  It wouldn't be possible to stay in those volatile situations if I didn't...but  "I am" there, so I assume, in the best way a person could be there. "Me" may be shut off to some degree but the Wiser part of me is there. They don't want the "Deeper I"  at that time...though...they want my ego encouraging the melodrama. They want an ego to ego interaction. My lack of reactivity is seen as coldness.  Hmm!

Upon listening deeply, I understand the pain, the emotions and the thought process  of this individual.  I do.  I see the pain. I don't, however,  obviously understand the behaviour of this person and the choices they make  which they stress are a part of who they are and that others should just be okay with them. Anyone who doesn't sit with them as a target  while they are more or less being what would be described as "abusive" is "abandoning  them in the moment of pain". Anyone who doesn't whole heartedly empathize or agree with their version of reality , is "judging" them. When one attempts to add a different perspective to their expressed reality or at least make them aware that that is not what we are thinking as they accuse us of feeling a certain way...we again are not validating, judging, not accepting them for who they are. When one kindly and calmly creates physical distance during the volatile episodes, one is accused of being responsible for  making the emotions spiral even more out of control and for any physical harm done to this person  or other ( usually property) during the explosive emotional outbursts.  There is absolutely no accountability, no responsibility at the time because they honestly believe  "I can't help it. I can't control my emotions so I can't control my behaviour.  It is who I am and you should just accept me and everything I do because of it. I am in pain. Can't you see, I am in pain. You have to help me. Give me what I  need. If you don't give me what I need...if you don't validate my pain in the exact way I need you to...the pain will get worse. I will have no choice then  but to "do" something that will hurt me or property. " They honestly believe that. 

The expression of this belief  is so convincing, that if one on the other side of these interactions  is not absolutely careful, they will come to believe they are responsible for any harm the individual inflicts on self and property. That they are responsible for the pain spiral, for the person's emotional well being, for their life.  It is very easy to get distracted by and drawn into this ego identification of the person expressing pain in this way. 

It is so true...the pain is real!! The intensity of the emotion... the quick escalation of it...is so real.  It must be terrifying for the person experiencing it.  It kills me to see this beautiful vibrant person be consumed by this pain when it is triggered.   Yet , I seem to see beyond teh pain.  I believe from observation, this monster inside them is also being internally and unknowingly  fed by the person as they are escalating. As I have been sitting through these experiences attempting to use my intellectual mind, rather than my personal mind (yes...when personal mind comes in there is judgement and defensiveness on my part), to observe where the feeding hand is coming from.  Where is that obscure  line between the trigger and the emergence of the  pain experience, between the pain at say four on the scale to the pain that is reported to be well over ten, and between the ability to control and the lack of?  I am trying to decipher what the person has control of during these experience and what they don't. I intuitively believe there is an element of control that the person is refusing to explore. That distinction seems so crucial.  This believing "I have no control over this" is creating more problems than necessary.  I want them to see there is an element of control but accepting that, may mean taking responsibility and accountability for past actions which would open up a pandora's box of guilt and shame giving them even more pain to deal with. It would also, however, be  the key to healing.  I want this person to recognize that this "disorder", this  "illness" is not who they are...it is just something they have.  Though it causes a great deal of pain, it does not have to cost them their life. The resistance of pain is obvious a big issue here. 

Oh wow! See what I am doing here?  I am "wanting" something for another person...(not only for them but for me as well.  I do feel better when they are not having pain episodes.  I do.  I feel "relief".  It makes my so called life easier.) But  I cannot fix this other person.  How dare I think I can.  It has nothing to do with "me". ( And again, who is "me"?) Their life, their journey...not mine. They are where they are and my job is to simply love them where they are.  Right now our relationship  is challenging but this challenge can help me to grow .  I can continue to work on "me"...the only thing that will really matter in the long run...so I stay open, accepting, present and loving with this person and all persons in my life. 

More importantly, however, I see how my wanting is taking me away from accepting what is right now. Right now what I think and perceive and yes still "judge" about this other person's experience means absolutely nothing in the big scheme of things. It is "statistically insignificant" .  My worry and concern over  my well being as I relate...." statistically insignificant." My worry and concern over their well being..."statistically insignificant" .   Our relationship....statistically insignificant.  Our life spans on this planet that has been going on for 4.5 billion years...statistically insignificant.  

So this relationship challenge, this observation of pain in another, is what Life has given "me". It isn't important.  What is important is what I do with it.  What do I do with it?  I keep working on going deeper, staying deeper, staying in my calm center refusing to get disturbed by any of it.  Maybe, just maybe, if I can stay there...suffering others around me will learn to find that calm center within themselves. 

All is well.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the  Universe ( July 6, 2023) Letting Go-The Path from Distraction to Liberation. https://tou.org/talks/