Tathata

 The perfect man uses his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing, it refuses nothing. It receives but does not keep.

Zhuangzi

Tathatha is  a word that simply means "That, that, and that". It is refrring to the ten thousand functions, ten thousand things, one suchness.

Everything is energy. Life is a dance of energy playing around us and through us. Death is just the other face of  that energy, 

and it is the rest, the not being anything around that which produces something around

You can't space without solid, or solid without space

You are a playing of this one energy

Energy is eternal delight...William Blake

And where does our greater wisdom come in?

...and you suddenly see through the whole sham of things. You realize you're that and you can't be anything else..but that

You are that Tathata...that everything.

All is well

Note: I am hoping the below is actually Alan Watts and not an  AI impersonation? 

T & H-Inspiration and Motivation (2024) Trust the Universe-Alan Watts on Finding Zen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBmuvR9QYLs&t=553s

Understanding the Nature of Life a Bit Better

My life is not about me, your life is not about you...I was never in control...I am in the hands of nature, nature is never in my hands...

I listened to an amazing podcast this morning after watching this same speaker be interviewed on Mayim Bailik's Breakdown the day before. Bernado Katsrup spoke on both the Breakdown and The Weekend University about his book, "Daimon and the Soul of the West" which I will, of course, have to add to my library and the already overcrowded recesses of my limited intellectual mind. :) 

I get this guy! I love it when I "get it" with people who seem to think like I do or be on the same wave length. (That is a subjective  interpretation.... of course...my intellectual ego is assuming it is on par with someone who just happens to be brilliant...Am I more than a little arrogant, maybe? In actuality, I could have a conversation with this man and all that would come to be in the thought bubble above my head is a big foggy, "duh!"lol) What I mean by wave length is that we have similar self explored ideation. He speaks to things I just happen to share here. It is cool to realize that first of all, I am not the only crazy person in the world who thinks like this, and secondly, that what I have to say is validated as possibly having the ability of making sense to others. He is  hinting to the same idea of Truth I seek and share here. 

There was a bit of a blanket warning for people, like me, who delve into Eastern wisdom thinking they understand it, "get it" despite all their western conditioning.  I will never understand the wisdom of the East in the way someone from the East does because I lack that cultural conditioining that is the context of these beliefs. I cannot understand the Vedas like a Hindu can, for example, because they were written and shared and taught in and around the context of Indian culture which I was never a part of.  And my English thinking brain can not digest the sankrit without losing much in translation. I miss the subtle but very important nuances wrapped in the culture and language that surround these belief patterns...therefore I can not "get it" completely. 

And my western conditioning gets in the way of the true spiritual goal of these teachings...the ultimate truth! Yes, I want truth now...I want to understand why I am here and what this is all for...and I say that more than anything...but ...if I am completely honest...there is and always has been an ulterior motive to my seeking.  Like many westerns who delve into these wisdom traditions for understanding, my main goal, was and  is "to end this suffering that I, as the human I call "me", experiences now." 

This truth expressed in the ancient wisdom traditions of the East are not personal but my western conditioning personalizes everything. Sigh.

Katsrup speaks of something called the daimon. It is the impersonal essence or force of nature that exists in all of us and if we are not mindful it can "capture"us and make us do unconscious things we would not normally do if we were conscious and aware . Though some may see "demon" in that word, it is neither good or bad...it just is, just as the tornado that tears down cities just is, or the tsunami that wipes away an entire village just it, or the rains that come after a drought to save a population, just is. Neither good or bad...just is.  Not out to reward or punish...just is.   This is nature doing what nature does and we can't personalize the daimon. It is similar to what jung would call the collective unconscious or what Tolle would call the "collective pain body"...come from so many different vraiables that played with nature over the years. It is nature expressing itself through these variables in us. 

The collective unconscious is impersonal...within this impersonal collective unconscious (nature) there can be parts of it that are more individuated and personal..."semi autonomous complexities in collective unconscious"as Jung would say...if we are in the cognitve neighborhood when one  of these complexiies pass by...it may seize us as a means to express itself. somewhat paraphrased.  

It is good to know that and keep that in mind as I proceed.  I mean I am leaps and bounds ahead now than I was when I first started looking into this wisdom from the East, in terms of depersonalizing it, but I have a way to go. I don't yet get it!

I do feel this daimon in me though when I come here to write. The daimon, he goes on to say, wanting through us is also these inexplicable callings we have to do things (like writing this blog) that do not serve the personal self...that are meant for the collective.  I feel the transcendence, creativity, expressing nature the way nature wants to express itself through us Hmm!

Nature, he goes on to say, is who we are and how we are made. Nature gives us life and it expresses itself through us.  There really is nothing personal about it.

Life is something nature is doing through us.

As I often write, we need to surrender to nature, allow it to express itself through us. Unlike Singer and others, however, this author says that surrender is not something we choose to do, 

Surrender is not something you choose to do...it is something that is beaten into you [through life circumsatnce and challenge].

You open up to surrender [when you have had enough and have no other choice]

He reminds us that Life is our greatest teacher. We will encounter many happy accidents from Life that lead us to transformation. These struggles are something we will later be grateful for. We just have to trust that nature knows best.  We as human minds know so little in comparison. 

Whatever can happen in my skull is nothing compared to the wisdom of nature.

We are all microcosms in the macrocosm.

Every life is an entire universe.

He also speaks a great deal about 'evil" in regards to this daimon, but I will wait until I read the book before I speak to that.

So glad I discovered another like minded human on this planet :) 

All is well!

The Weekend University ( October 2, 2025) Bernardo Katsrup:Aligning with Nature's Will...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGbZXMQLYss&t=4481s

Mayam Bialik's Breakdown (October, 2025) Is Reality a Dream? Consciousness, Intuition, and Life After Death./ Dr. Bernardo Katsrup https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB0PtR0wMow&t=2s

Not This Reflection

 The Ego's Reflection

Like Narcissus did so curiously, many centuries ago
I look about for who I am.  I simply do not know.
When I glance into the water I am surprised by what I see;
there I find a shiny reflection staring smugly back at me.

"This must be who I am," I utter as I reach in to pick "me" up
but  alas this watery  image, with my hands, I just can't seem to cup.
It slips through my fingers no matter how tightly I hold on.
It drips, slithers  and  trickles away. What am I doing wrong?

Fear then overcomes me. This precious image I do not want to  lose.
So I seek and grasp  at any  form around me that  I can somehow use
to help me retrieve my perfect self from the surface of this lake;
to gather it up  in its shiny  form within me,  to end a desperate  ache.

But no matter what I grab or try to cling to, like the water, it slips through
the space between my fingers and disappears from earthly view.
I can not understand it as my  confusion and  frustration grows
I cry out questions to the Echo, to Nemesis and to anyone that knows.

"Why is it so challenging to hold onto a dense  object made of matter?
And why does this lovely image I look upon break apart and splatter
whenever I dip my fingers beneath the surface the gawking world sees?"
Then I hear the silent  answer from within me and I fall down upon  my knees.
 
What I look upon so longingly, will never be more than a  mere  reflection
always lacking in the depth of being , in sweet stillness and divine perfection.
I am not just a shadow rippling on the surface of this pool of collected rain
I am the Seer, not the seen.  I am the  creator, not the  goddess of the vain.

White and gold petals soon surround the image  marking its glorious rebirth
and the roots of understanding ground the Self I am more deeply into earth. 
Who I am cannot be reflected back for anyone to name, or know or see
and it is with  this eternal knowing that the Observer is finally set free.
 
Dale-Lyn Feb 2020

I am obsessed with understanding the personality and the nature of who we truly are which I know somehow is not the personality. It is much deeper, much bigger than this idea we have of "me" and "you". At the same time it is formless so it cannot be understood in physical terms...it cannot be picked up, held, clung to no matter how much we try to. The personality is just a reflection on a lake.

I wrote the above five years ago.  I have spent the last five years observing  this personality, this ego, I have been so attached to all my life, believing it was what I was and struggling to protect it. I slowly, slowly (and not yet completely) stopped trying to pick it up, to hold onto it, to identify with it. My view has gone from a very small apeture focus of "this is my life",  to a larger one of "this is Life". It keeps getting wider and this personality keeps getting smaller within it. Hmm. 

 I see this "me"...that is the reality for so many of us... as an illusion ...a mere reflection...not who I am.  Nothing in this physical world makes much sense to me anymore. I do not yet know who I am- in the felt experience of knowing but I know it is not this personality I call "me".

Hmm!

All is well.

Be Growth Oriented, Not Goal Oriented

Be the best being that you can, serving what is unfolding in front of you.

Michael A. Singer

Hmm!

Michael A. Singer teaches, in the below linked video, that though society teaches us to be "goal oriented", over being "growth oriented"...

Goal orientation does not make you a Great Being...

Most of us do not wake up in the morning asking the important question, "How can I grow today towards becoming a better "being," more aligned with  my Higher Self?  No... most of us are overly concerned with keeping up with society's goal driven mind set...about the opinion of others. With this mindset...we find ourselves worried about what we can "do", how we can appear so we can avoid not pleasing or not being accepted by others. We find ourselves beating ourselves up for those times we do not do enough or meet the objectives we and others have set for ourselves, for not reaching our smart goals, for not checking off enough on our "to-do" lists. We also project our inadequacies onto others...judging others for not doing enough or not "being" the way we assume they should be. We do not see...that this is what other opinion is.  That it has nothing to do with us but what the other is experiencing, perceiving, based on their own experiences of life.  But we personalize other opinions so much that we spend our lives trying to please and avoid rejection. We do not see that...

Every minute of your life is doing the best that you can....it is never about winning or losing...it has nothing to do with other people and what they think of you

Opinion is just projection of whatever we stuffed and stored inside calling it our "personality".  It is not reality. The opinion and judgement you have of the so-called "failures" of  others should be totally irrevalent for them.  The opinion of others has nothing to do with us, therefore it should be totally irrevelant to us. 

We just have to own our lives and do the best taht we can with every moment ...Our best will depend on where we are -with what we have learned so far, how evolved and conscious we are, the circumstances we encounter and have encountered.  We do the best with that moment based on where we are . Then we ask: 

Did you do the best that you can in that set of circumatnces? Would you do it again. We learn from that and we move on.

The question we should be asking is, "What do I want to do with this day...how an I be better? How can I live from a higher place than I did yesterday?"

What should we do then? What jobs do we do?

Life will give a job to you...How do you know the job for you? It is in front of you...you started the process of applying yourself and doing the best you can in the job that presented itself to you...

And we do that without trying to reach some "external" goal...some idea of "success". There is no attachment to outcome. Our purpose is to learn and grow.  It is to experience this job...whatever it is that showed up...with allowance, and appreciation for the opportunity to experience this "doing" in this moment.

As it Applies to a Photography Job

I had an opportunity to apply this truth to some "doing" that unfolded in front of me.  I was asked to shoot some engagement photos for my daughter. I was ambivalent about doing it. Ego was involved: Shamer said, "Nah! You can't do that...you do not shoot people well...You will screw up and they will be disappointed. Others will judge you as a terrible photographer. " It then reminded me of all my terrible photo shoots.  

Then Redeemer stepped up to say, "Yes do it! Prove to others that you can shoot well. Get that good opinion from others." It reminded me of some of my good and even "great" shots. 

Well, I did it. And as usually happens when I am behind a lens...something takes over and I just shoot.   It isn't about me and my petty ego. It is a doing that is done for the sake of doing with little to no attachment to outcome. It doesn't matter if this "me" is good or bad at what she does. I lose the goal orientation.That is both a strength and a weakness in photography lol. In landscape photography that usually works for me.  In potrait photography, it doesn't always work for "me"...the photographer with an ego. There is so much to consider and you have to "technically" be on the ball which I often am not. Sigh!

I see through this experience that I am still suck in old patterns atht do not align me with Higher Self. 

I am very, very hard on myself when it comes to viewing my pics in Lightroom for the first time. I am very concerned about what others may think. Will my images make others see me as a good photographer? Why do I even care?  I never ever called myself anything but a very amateurish photographer...a life long learner of this craft. I was, at a deeper level, just concerned with my growth and I saw myself simply as a person who wants to learn to take better pictures of this world everytime she shoots. When I shoot lanscapes, animals, or children...it is all learning and growing without any expectation of outcome. I never fear the judgement.  These things...I shoot...I know are not going to judge my skill level. But when you shoot people who want you ...to not capture them as they are...but capture some image they have of themselves or want to have of themselves...it is a totally different ballgame. 

So, as I look at the pics I have taken...almost 200 frames...I lose my growth oreintaation. I see myself judging them through what I assume to be the critical eyes of others. This is what I hear myself saying there:

"I did not succeed at the goal! These pics are not enough! Maybe, I am not enough!There is too much space between the couple there.  He is too stiff and not relaxed enough...the light is not right...should have switched to shutter priority there...too many blurry shots for my liking...oh that light is not right...should have used side lighting rather than backlighting...should have used the other side of the reflector...should have brought her face down in that shot ...too much white of her eyes showing, not enough colour...should have brought her chin down more and turned her face a bit more toward the light...should have posed them this way...should have posed them that way...should have a few more pan shots to show the landscape....should have prompted more to encouraged playfulnees and relaxation etc..."

These are all very truthful realizations. Honest constructive criticism. And this is wonderful in the learning and growing sense of it all. Seeing our mistakes and knowing we can do better the next time is an amazing thing. That is learning! It is what we are here to do. This was a great photography lesson and I enjoyed the experience when I was shooting.  I was 100 percent there ( as a person...if not as a photographer lol). I served what was unfolding in front of me.

What is the problem then? 

If there is a problem in this example, it is that I recognize that I am still too attached to outcome in some of the creative jobs I take on.  I am still too concerned about societal expectations when it comes to meaningless roles or titles.  I am still too concerned about the opinions of others. Despite my practice, I can still be more goal oriented than growth oriented at times.

Ahhh! But there is learning here too, isn't there? 

Today I wake up and say, "In my photography, in any job Life offers me...today...I am going to focus, not so much on doing the job better, but on learning to be a better person doing it. I am going to strive to be better than I was yesterday in doing the best I can with this moment as it is unfolding.  I am going to use this job to grow a little more today...be a little closer to Higher Self than I was yesterday. " 

Enjoy every moment of your life by doing the best that you can with it as it is unfolding...

That is why we are here...to grow...not to achieve goals or meet expectations we or others have of us.

All is well.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( September, 2025) Doing the Best You Can-The path to Liberation.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMRh2_UU1Uo&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

Truth and Reconcilliation Day

  

Truth and Reconcilliation 

As your ancestors 

cry out to be heard

through the chaos 

that makes up 

this world of  lost, 

busy and greedy minds,

a world too many still cling to 

with white knuckles and heavy breath

as if it is the only reality,

my ancestors 

bow their head in shame

within me.

I feel the heaviness 

of their shoulders 

dragging mine  down

away from  ears

 full of the echoed cries of children,

of  lost women, 

of brave souls

mortally wounded by broken promises 

and exhumed from  the sandy depths 

of someone else's

unconsciousness. 

These ancestors within me

cry out for forgiveness

as they see clearly 

what they could not see

when they walked around in forms

that felt so righteous

 in their taking 

of that which was never theirs. 

The red, once proudly worn 

with national pride,

is replaced with the saffron

worn by those 

who have achieved 

the sight of truth

few will ever achieve 

in this busy world.

Though my form 

that carries the sins of my fathers

may never be worthy 

to wear such a cry for forgiveness,

I do so with the hope

of healing for all. 

© Dale-Lyn, July, 2021

We evolve as individual humans and as a race by learning to accept all that is. That acceptance includes accepting collective energy that created pain and suffering for others, Samskaras can be collective and intergenerational,  I believe. We can not push down these truths just because they are uncomfortable. We must accept the discomfort as we encourage these samskaras to come to the surface, be seen, be felt, and then released in a way that serves all best. This day is allotted to doing just that.

All is well. 

The Shining One

 The background, the reality, of everyone is that same Eternal, Ever Blessed, Ever Pure, and Ever Perfect One. It is the Atman, the Soul, in the saint, and in the sinner, in the happy and the miserable, in the beautuful and the ugly, in men and in animals; it is the same throughout. It is the shining One.

Vivekananda

Diversion or Higher Ideal Pursuit?

 

It is not enough to see or understand clearly. The future will be shaped in teh areana of human activity, by those willing to comit their minds and their bodies to the task.

Robert Kennedy

I focus on seeing and undersatnding clearly. I am making this yogic purification so the shakti flow of love, joy ( probably aiming more for peace) can flow through ...my life objective.  I am seeking this "higher ideal" of seeing God in everything...my major purpose to Life.  I am seeking to grow through life experience, accepting Life as it is.  I am allowing Life to do what it does.  I see all the pain around me...I feel that frustration that comes with not being able to "fix" it all...and at the same time I know it isn't mine to fix. I feel it all!

At teh same time I am "actively" doing.  Is my activity part of me embracing this purpose or is it a diversion away from it? 

I am "doing" a lot. I am not attached to outcome...I really am not. I do sooo much....so many projects I am enjoying ( or not enjoying) that I am absorbed in.  I spend my days writing...here but also outside of here.  I am getting two books in a "You Can Write" series for young writers up and that is a time consuming activity. But it is fun...in a weird way.  It took me  over six hours to figure out how to change the headers for each chapter.  Now, I am struggling to figure out how to get the page numbers to flow. Crazy. But I get absorbed in that activity. It takes me away. Diversion or higher ideal pursuit? 

 I am also knitting blankets for each of the grandkids...I look forward to getting to that each evening. It is soothing. And when I knit I dont care about perfection....if half way though I realize that I made a boo-boo...I will, without too much thought, unravel the whole thing and begin again. I tell myself...it is all in the learning and growing as a knitter. I get absorbed again into each stitch. Diversion or higher ideal pursuit?

I am shooting  a bit too.Yesterday I did an engagement photoshoot for my daughter. I usually hate shooting people!!! I always screw up because I like to shoot what is beyond the images and the appearances they wish for me to create. I want to shoot "what is". I hate posing people...Normally, I like to shoot nature, animals, children because it is so natural...I can lose myself in that. I don't mind shooting candid shots of people.  But posed shots...yuck.  Yesterday I did a "pro" shoot (and I am far, far from a pro lol)...and I realized after a few of the posed shots the desire to create an image fell away and I began shooting what is.  As I was shooting that even though it wasn't the type of photography I like to do...I was totally in the moment and I was trying to capture what was there.  I lost attachment to outcome. I was just going to shoot whatever was happening in front of me regardless of how it turned out...told myself I would worry about that later in Lightroom.. So much so that I forgot to pay attention to the details...like what apeture I was shooting at, the best use of the natural light, the best use of the reflector, the best prompts for the couple to show  what they would be happy with later. I prompted them but it was far from professional prompting. I just shot the way I shoot...what was there...what came naturally to my eye. There was so much beauty in them and the world around us...even in those imperfections I picked up. So I shot and I shot and I shot.  Diversion or higher ideal pursuit?

In the last 72 hours I also did up more videos, created more deep relaxation guides ( for me mostly though I offered them to the public).  I dealt with some crap around here and I applied for a job. ( which requires a lot of work-resumes, cover letters etc) . Not really attached to any outcome. Diversion? Higher ideal pursuit?

I have to ask...am I distracting from real life when I go to these activities...are they simply an escape, a diversion from this "problematic life" going on around me...or am I more alive doing these things...being in those moments  of purposeful? or  purposeless? activity that allows time to just pass without the problems of others in the way...without the need for a certain outcome? I mean I get the outcome with each of these things...I finish my books and end up with copies in my hands.  I end up with many pics...some of them really good...many not...some awful even. I have another entry added to my blog every day.  I end up with so many videos a week...now have a lot of guided relaxation practices that are helping me with my relaxation/meditation practice. ( I am not spending as much time as I am used to in complete silence). My grandkids will have new blankets at Christmas. I may or may not get a job but I put myself out there again...my resume is updated.

Hmm!

I was in each and everyone of these activities 100 % each time I was there. All of these "give" in someway back to the world.  They help me to share the weird and imperfect gifts and skills I have with the world in some way- sometimes it is with, practical assistance (learning and education tools), sometimes with encouragement and motivation, other times with " deep truth", and still other times a reflection of the beauty I see (photos, poems etc)...I think, maybe, Shakti, spirit...flows a little bit more freely when I am "engaged" in these things then it does when I perceive myself stuck under the weight of other people's problems. Maybe these activities show me what is "real" in Life more than the other does. Hmm!

Is all this activity diversion or a pursuit for the higher ideal? I don't know yet. 

All is well

The Barefacts of the Moment

 Just give attention to the barefacts of the moment...

Eckhart Tolle

Seems so simple...yet it is not.  We keep slipping away from this "higher ideal" as Vivekananda called it. To be able to see the moment for what it is beyond everything the story telling personality does with it and more importantly to see the perfection of Source in all of it...is not always easy.  We tend to fail and fall back into personal mind and ego's drama again and again.

That's okay. Vivekanada encouraged:

...never mind these failures, these backslidings; hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more. Vivekananda

We need to embrace what is as it is because the Divine exists in that. The drama of little "me", these stories we create around the "suchness", the "isness" of Life pull us away from experiencing the perfect moment.  They take us away from seeing God in everything.

He has hidden Himself inside the atom... the Ancient One who resides in the inner most recess of every human heart. Vivekananda

We need to stay conscious in every moment, not lost in the character roles we are playing, not lost in the drama, the stories the personality writes as we go along. We can do this no matter how challenging or dramatic our circumsatnces seem to be. 

...if you had to starve, you can also starve consciously

Bring vigalence to the inner state so you no longer believe the outer state is more important than the inner state. Tolle

The inner state is everything!!! It exists in this moment...here and now...beyond story, beyond the narrative, the drama. Seek it! Honor it! For it is there where God can be found.

All is well.

Eckhart Tolle (July, 2025) How to Stay Conscious in Difficult Moments.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LkxMBxSgtc

Swami Vivekananda(n.d.) Complete Works. Kindle

The Personality and Who We Really Are: More Wisdom from Alan Watts

 

I am thee. All is Thine. Thy Will be done.

I listened to Alan Watts this morning and it helped me to reflect deeper on my thoughts about personality and that which we really are. 

I love his take on personality.

This you that you take so seriously...this ego, this personality...what is it? Where did it come from? 

If you look for it, it is rather elusive. It is a collection of memories, a bundle of desires and fears, a certain pattern of behavior. It is a story you tell yourself and others about who you are. "I am a person who likes this and dislikes that. I am someone who did this and failed to do that". It is a concept, a thought. And like all thoughts, it is fleeting. It has no solidity. You cannot locate it in the body.

Once we see beyond this personality we come to terms with who we really are.

What you call "me" is something the universe is doing right here and right now. It is a temporary dancing pattern, a gesture and like a gesture in the air it is fundamentally empty..

When you don't take your ego so seriously, a wonderful thing happens...you begin to relax. The constant low grade anxiety of having to protect this fragile fictional self begins to dissolve. You can afford to be more spontaneous. You can afford to be foolish. You can afford to make mistakes. 

We can learn to simply be ourselves. Not the idea of ourselves, but the living, breathing immediate reality of ourselves.

So much of our lfe energies are built around building, maintaining and defending these personalities ...this overidentification with the roles we are playing that we don't live the lives we are meant to live. We suffer. It doesn't have to be that way. When we get beyond "me", we can be free.

When you are no longer defending a fragile self image you become incredibly strong. Criticism doesn't shatter you, failure doesn't define you, success doesn't inflate you. You can flow with circumstances. You can adapt. You can be like water which is soft and yielding, yet which can eventually wear away the hardest rock. This is not passivity. This is supreme intelligence. It is action which is in accord with the total situation, not just with your narrow, selfish desire. It is the action of the whole universe expressing itself through you.

Going from self to Self is freedom from obligation and unworthiness.

You do not need permission to be. You do not need to earn the right to be here. You are here because you are here. 

It is freedom from exhausting struggle

You don't try. Trying is the energy of the seperate ego, the energy of seriousnesse ...any effort to become something is a rejection of what you already are...which is the energy of the cosmos.

It is a better use of the energy  within us.

When you are not wasting energy definding an idea of yourself, ou have immense energy for Life

It is an invitation for faith and trust to replace fear.

Trust yourself, trust your own nature, and the nature of which you are a part

Getting beyond personality to Who We Truly Are is free of obligation.

Your only obligation, if there is one, is to be true to the deepest truth of your being...that you are a unique, irreplacebale temporary expression of the whole universe...and the universe is not serious. It is playful. It is joyful. It is a great cosmic game of hide and seek where it is both the hider and the seeker. So, go on play, experiment. Be foolish. Be magnificent. Fail gloriously. Succeed lightly. Love. Lose. Feel it all. ..You...you are the music; you are the dance.

Remember who You Are.

All is well

Alan Watts & Wisdom (September, 2025) Don't Take life Too Seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrLObPkEnsM

Letting Go to the Playful Flow of Life: Wisdom from Alan Watts

The call is to let go...to join the dance that has been going on for billions of years, to sing the song that is already singing itself through you

Just yesterday I posted a video about letting go, and this morning I opened to this beautiful wisdom from Alan Watts about letting go to the playful flow of Life.

To many of us take life too seriously, don't we? We fail to enjoy the felt experience of in this here and now. As a writer, (one of my many false roles that I am getting less and less attached to) I loved this analogy.

We are like people reading a novel. Who are only interested in getting to the last page. And so we skim. We turn the pages frantically, missing all the poetry, all the drama, all the lovely descriptions just to see how it turns out. Then when we get there, we close the book and say, "Is that all?"

The whole point of the book was in the reading, in the living through it.

This is what happens when life becomes a problem to be solved, rather than a reality to be experienced.

We are so busy measuring life we forget to live it....

We need to let go of our need to measure Life, rush Life, figure It out, control It, or struggle against It.  We need to let go of this idea that Life is a hard and serious thing we must learn to maneuve. Yes, as I have discovered again and again, Life can be serious and pretty darn challenging at times.  That doesn't mean we have to be serious in our response to It. 

You can play a serious game without taking it seriously.

We do not need to take it so seriously. Letting go is letting go of this seriousness.

The true opposite of taking Life seriously is to see it as play...to see the Universe itself as fundamentally playful.

Look at nature. Does it look serious to you? ...look at a kitten chasing its tail...waves lapping against the shore...do they look like they are on a grim mission? Do the clouds look they are filled with existential dread? No, they are simply playing...they are expressing themselves.

Wu Wei is effortless action. 

It doesn't mean doing nothing...it means acting without straining...without forcing. It is the way of water....it does not strive, it simply flows and in that flowing it accomplsihes everything.

Life is also not something we have to spend all our energy figuring out. We do not strive to awaken to truth...we enjoy the process of awakening here and now.

The world is not something you have to figure out. It is something to be tasted, touched, heard, and seen. You are not a passenger in the universe, being taken for a ride. You are the universe experiencing itself.

Wu Wei can often be translated to mean purposelessness or effortless action. Life is not about strain, struggle, effort to get somewhere up ahead...to get to the ending of the great novel so we have all the answers.  It is about enjoying and experiencing each page we read, each moment we live here and now. It is about going with the flow of Life and trusting it will take us to where we need to be, enjoying the ride as we travel along. 

So, your only obligation if there is one is to be true to the deepest truth of your being...that you are a unique, irreplacebale temporary expression of the whole universe...and the universe is not serious. It is playful. It is joyful. It is a great cosmic game of hide and seek where it is both the hider and the seeker. So, go on play, experiement. Be foolish. Be magnificent. Fail gloriously. Succeed lightly. Love. Lose. Feel it all. But whatever you do, don't miss the show by being too busy looking for the meaning behind it. The meaning is in the music.  The meaning is in the dance. And you...you are the music; you are the dance.

Learn to Let Go!

All is well.

Alan Watts & Wisdom ( September, 2025) Don't Take Life Too Seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrLObPkEnsM

How is Your Life Treating You, and Your Personality?

 

Who am I? Not the body, because it is decaying; not the mind, because the brain will decay with the body; not the personality, nor the emotions for these will also vanish with death.

Ramana Maharshi

I was recently asked by a good friend I hadn't seen in a while, "How's your life treating you?"

And I casually answered, like I tend to do, "Oh great. Everything's fine. You?" 

In actuality I wanted to say, "Man. My life is hard! I ain't happy with it!" 

I thought about that question again when I woke up this morning, to the news that some very unconscious people are using whatever they can against my son to gain the control they feel they lost over a situation they were so sure they could manipulate and control. If I thought their actions were based on genuine concern for the well being of those they are professing it is for...I would be more understanding and compassionate...but I see so clearly what the motivation is. 

The key player in all this is someone who doesn't even have legal rights. It is her narrative she is trying to protect; it is she who wants to control this situation...to come out on top of it...to "win". Why? So she can protect her very sick and toxic personality that is professing to the world that it is the rescuer, the saviour, and she does so through lying, manipulating, controlling, bullying, slandering, and harrassing while making others into villains. I feel sick to my stomach when I think of her and what she is trying to do...all the while proposing to be so "Christian", so kind, and giving,when she is anything but.  I see her personality disorder so clearly. She is personality-sick but unfortunately she was able to convince her loved ones through her manipulation tactics that she is the healthiest one, the sole holder of the truth and knowledge in this situation. Sigh!

At the same time I am dealing with the extreme "in your face drama" of another individual with a personality disorder that lives here. The epitome of unconscious, self-preserving pain body too often stares me down.  And man, does that suck. It weighs on me.  Even though I can stay calm, and cool headed through all the drama, my body still seems to soak it all up and it gets stored in my gut, in my muscles and in my heart. What comes from this personality is nasty stuff. It literally makes me sick.

There must be some learning I am supposed to gain in this confrontation with personality disorders.  There has to be.That is why, maybe, they are in my life now when I am working so dillegently on dismantling my attachment to my own personality and contemplating this thing called "my" life. 

I see how nasty personality is and how it causes suffering. Personality, regardless if it is considered "harmless" by society's terms or toxic and socially destructive, is not a healthy thing to identify with.  It isn't who we are. Yet, it is so challenging for many humans to see that the personality they spend their lives creating and protecting is a useless, often harmful, illusion they created with their own resisting minds.

Now...I know I am not in a position to judge anyone for their personalities. If I see something nasty in another, I know that nasty thing is in this "me". Others are simply reflecting and I am simply projecting. Truth is, as all of us are, I have in the past, or have the potential to do so in the future the very things I am having a hard time accepting in them.  I mean I did a lot of work...a lot of work on my own narcissitic tendencies and I have come far but I am nowhere near the point where I can judge other people for theirs. Until they are evolved, all humans have a tendency toward narcissicism and unwholesome actions directed toward others in an attempt to protect these illusions they see as reality.  I am not above that.

I also get through the day reminding myself, "They know not what they do!" I tell myself they cannot see the nastiness of their own personalities and the effect it has on others. They, therefore, cannot take accountability for what those personalities do. Sigh!

How do you get through to others when the personality, the armour they wear to protect themselves and are constantly shining and polishing so others can be dazzled by the shine,  has become their second skin....it is fused to them. It also seems to seperate them from others. Like a semi-permeable membrane, it makes them very selective as to what can come in. They blame others when anything in Life slipps through. What goes out, however, is another matter. They have little to no problem, it seems, bleeding, or sweating all over anyone else, without concern for the toxic effect of what they are spewing. 

Personalities suck!

Is this "me" as awful as what I am observing in others.  It has the potential to be...for sure...so I need to work extra hard to to get past personality in myself and others to the greater Self. Sigh!

"My" Life?

Anyway, as I deal with all this drama directed towards others or brought to my attention, I question what this thing is that I call "my" life. "Me", "mine", and "my" are concepts that have to go too, along with personality.  They don't serve.

But when my friend asked me that question, I also wanted to say..."I right now don't have a perception of a "my life".  This life, I have been given, is simply absorbed and buried under the lives of everyone around me."

 This human I call "me" has no real issues other than some financial things and a few little health issues...nothing big...She should be embracing and enjoying this time she has on Earth. Why isn't she? She is absorbed in everyone's else's problems, challenges, and dramas...When I describe my challenges...they are all related to the challenges others are having in their lives.  "My problems" are really not "mine", they are everyone else's problems that I have taken on and made my own. "My life" is not my own...I have given it up to everyone else... like I am one of those velcro targets just meant for other people's stuff to stick to. 

I really have no big problems in life. I have learned to cope and chill with pretty well anything Life throws my way...What I identify as "problems" have to do with other people's life coping...not my own.  I see "problem" in "my life"  when others who I care about cannot cope or chill with what life has given them. If they cannot cope with it...I feel, for some strange reason, I must cope with it for them. I take it on.

Wow! That was an eye opening realization. Must explore that farther later.

No "My" to Life

Anyway...there is no "my" to life. I know that. It is just life...but this human has an opportunity to explore this life...embrace it...experience it. I would answer my friend now if I could,

"Life is treating me as fairly as it it treats us all.  Grateful for that...I am learning some wonderful things about personality right now.  Interesting. I am also  learning that my felt experience of It is being complicated by the fact that I insist on living other people's lives for them instead of just living what I ahve been given to live. I guess, I will have to do something about that. Thanks for asking."

All is well in my world.

That Which Shines in Thee...I am That

 Thou sun, who hast covered the Truth with the golden disc, do thou remove the veil, so that I may see the Truth that is within thee. I have known the  Truth that is within thee, I have known what is the real meaning of thy rays and the glory and have seen That which shines in thee, and That which is within thee is within me, and I am That"

Vivekananda's recitation of a phrase from the last chapter of Shukla Yajurveda: the Isha Upanishads 

Basically what this is expressing is a recogniton of a truth...the Truth- of who we are.

Alan Watts says it is the recognition that

 the small controlled version of yourself is preventing your larger, more authentic Self from emerging.

We spend so much of our lives thinking we are something we are not and putting great struggle and effort into maintaining that image...that small controlled version...that we end up resisting what Life is here to show us or teach us. We fail to experience Who we are and why we are here.

Vivekananda also tells us:

They grope in darkness who worship this  ignorant world that is produced out of ignorance, thinking of it as Existence, and those who live their whole lives in this world, and never find anything better or higher, are groping in still greater darkness.

When we start to relax into the flow of Life...accept it, be present for, experience it and be curious about it ...rather than struggling in this false idea that we are here to control it (when obviously we cannot), things change. We begin to see Who we truly are.

This intelligence that you are partenering with [when you surrender to Life] isn't foreign to you. It's not some external diety pulling strings from above. It's teh same awareness taht's reading these words right now, the same presence that has been looking out through your eyes your entire life, only now It recognizes ItSelf. You begin to sense the seamless continuity between your inner awareness and the awareness that seems to permeate everything...begin dancing who you actually are. Watts

And as Vivekananda also says, 

But he who knows the secret of nature, seeing That which is beyond nature through teh help of nature, he crosses death, and through teh help of That which is beyond nature, he enjoys Eternal Bliss.

All is well.

Alan Watts & Wisdom (September, 2025) The More You Learn to Let Go, The More Life Gives You.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMEpBMwl6Zg

Vivekananda (n.d.) 2.57 Jnana Yoga. The Complete Works of Vivekananda. Kindle Edition

Dealing With Pain Body's Maya

 Give it up; the world we have been thinking of so long, the world to which we have been clinging so long, is a false world of our own creation. Give that up; open your eyes and see that as such it never existed; it is a dream, Maya.

Vivekananda

I uttered those word to someone last evening ( in a paraphrased form) who was in the height of an extreme reaction to my sharing that I will be moving 30 minutes away. The reaction was dramatic and extreme...to say the least...like it usually is when change threatens the false protective world she created around her and to which she clings with white knuckles in hope it will provide some semblance of comfort and safety for this idea she has of who she is. Once those walls begin to rumble and shake (and it doesn't take much to make walls built on sand rumble and shake...so they rumble a lot)...she spits out a hatred, blame, negativity that is as toxic as sulphuric acid towards me. How dare I make her world rumble? How dare I disturb her comfort zone? She is, after all, sick, she reminds whoever will hear and especially herself, and I am responsible somehow for making her sick etc.  I, therefore, owe her my complete and utter devotion etc etc. Anything less than that and I am "mean", "cruel", "unloving" etc. She threatens to hurt herself and tells me I am responsible for it. I drove her to it. I am to blame for her unhealthy choices...each and every one of them. 

Sigh! 

This is what it is like living with someone with Borderline Personality Disorder. Her pain is real...there is no doubt about that. She has the epitomy of what Eckhart Tolle refers to as the "pain body". 

Eckhart Tolle defines the pain body as an energetic field of old accumulated emotional pain-both personal and collective-that resides in an individual's mind and body. It is driven by an unconscious need to survive and feeds on unhappiness, manifesting as intense anger, sadness, or fear and often resulting in self-sabotaging behaviours. The pain body thrives when we identify with it, but it can be dissolved by bringing conscious awarenes and presence to it, observing it without judgement. (From AI overview of Tolle's definition)

I wonder how Marsha Linehan (the founder of DBT, a treatment modality she developed for treating BPD) views that definition. It seems bang on to me from both the psychological and the spiritual standpoint. 

Her pain  body is old accumulated energy from a past ...a story she clings to with all her might and even adds to, fabricates, and rearranges to create a justifyable "reason" for her pain body's reaction and behaviours in the present. There is definitely pain there that she stuffed and stored...that she repressed and surpressed so deeply creating doozies of samskaras to which she sees as who she is, and to which she spends her life keeping down. She uses most of her focus, her energy to organize the world around her so precicesly that these things never get triggered. Refusing to accept the ebb and flow of life, the natural unpredictability of it, the vastness of it...the reality of it...she creates a very limited and unreal version to hide her pain body within. And from there she feeds it and lets it grow.  It has become who she thinks she is. 

And I...a recovering pain body...a person who can finally see beyond the pain body in this human I call "me" and the pain body in others am no longer pulled into that drama her's creates. Her pain body feels threatened by my detachment to it and convinces her of her worse fear...that I am not only abandoning her, I am tearing down the walls of her comfort zone. Pain body grows with this fear and she reacts...very, very dramatically. 

There was a time I would have so quickly gotten pulled into that drama...where I too would have fed her pain body...with what seemed like my very soul....anything to soothe it. There was a time I didn't make the distinction between a being and their human "pain body".  Now, I see that distinction so clearly.  I know when I look at her that she isn't her pain body...it is just something she has and something she feeds.  I know she is much more than it, than her diagnosis, than her past, than her choices and circumstances... I can see who she is beyond it and how bright her Life can be if she lets go of that Maya to which she clings so tightly. I tell her that (not in those words exactly...but you know.).

That doesn't go over very well, let me tell ya. lol. Pain body puffs up and blows up in an attempt to appear bigger and all emcompassing when it is threatened by Truth.  It doesn't want me seeing that she isn't it...more than anything it doesn't want her seeing that she isn't it. It doesn't want her discovering that if she stopped clinging to it and the lies it spews, if she stopped feeding it and identifying as it...if she stood away and just observed it...pouring conscious awareness and presence on it from the Seat of Who She Really Is...pain body would shrink to nothing....eventually. 

But atlas...he isn't ready for that truth. And I, from this end, can no longer soothe or feed her version of reality as she continues to identify with pain body. I don't get lost in the drama anymore.  I don't react. She sees my cool detachment as me "not loving her", "not caring", "being mean and cruel" (and all sorts of other names I will not share here :) ) Still...I don't get pulled in. My conscious awareness, my presence is doing the observing now. I see pain body and I see her.  I bypass pain body again and again in our communications to speak directly to her. I tell her I love her and I see her. I remind her that though I see and feel her pain...I believe she isn't her pain, her diagnosis, her choices, her circumstances. I encourage her to get the help she needs to get "through" her pain...that there is nothing I want more than her happiness and well being...that I will support her in getting the help she needs but she has to be willing to get help.

When I do that her pain body puffs up with all the reasons why she can't get help and why it is then my responsibility to fix her and to let it do what it does. I simply speak to her again and tell her..."This is your life.  It is you that must do the work of getting through this "pain experience"...all I can do is support you and love you through it when you are ready...."I didn't break it and I can't fix it." "

I also remind her that her pain body has no right to hurt other people.  Though I understand it, no one has to be a victim of it. So, she cannot expect me...or anyone else... to be abused by it. I tell her she is responsible for her Life, no one else. 

Then, I will hug her...if she lets me...and I tell her I will love her and see her beauty no matter what she does. I walk away. 

Though I remain, for the most part, in higher awareness during these situations...I automatically fall back there to Seat of Objective Observer when I notice the reaction starting...it is still very draining and exhausting for this human I call "me" to be dealing with this all the time. It is a challenge. A challenge I am slowly mastering. 

I have learned so much, though, through this life challenge.  I have grown so much. For that I am very grateful.

All is well. 

Raising the Vibration

 

It is all pure light shimmering...

All physical form is shakti...all energy vibrating at different rates

Everything in this world is energy vibrating at different frequencies. Do you get that yet?

So every circumstance, every thing a person says or does in our direction, every "thing" is just energy coming in.  It is a form of Shakti.  Shakti is high energy: etheral and light...like light. If energy is high enough it can go through your body...it can flow right through.

Then why do things get blocked inside us? What blocks or stops shakti?

Singer tells us the high energies can't flow through because of the lower energy blockages we create with our personal mind and our emotions. We have taken shakti and made it denser with our focus on it, with our clinging, our averting, our judement. We have used the high energy of shakti, lowered it, condensed it, and then use it against ourselves by making blockages that  block the high energy from flowing through us. 

..to get to a higher vibration rate you have to make it through lower vucbrations you created. 

I am seeing that everything has a vibration of shakti within it (everything is shakti) and these phenomena our senses pick up come into our awareness differently. With our 'personal minds' we judge each of these as pleasant, unpleasnat, or neutral. Any judgement other than neutral condenses shakti and we then lower that shakti, bring it down into its dense form and store it inside. Visually I can see it being pulled down into the root chakra where all this concentrated and condensed shakti wraps around the base of the spine. So teh natural flow of shakti within can not flow freely upward and out of us as it is meant to do. I don't know...that is just how I visualize it. 

I see judgement as a selectively permeable membrane personal mind uses to push away (and down) some shakti containining phenomena and to grasp and cling to other.

We use our will to slow down the higher vibration of what was coming in through our senses to make it dense enough to block shakti.

The energy that came in is not unhealthy...what we do with it is. Anger, for example, by itself is not un healthy but we lower the vibration of it with our judging miond...and it becomes the  blocked shakti.Eveything wants to come up and be released...from the base of the spine to the higher chakras.

Your mind and your heart does not want that samskara in there...it is trying to purify...so it keeps pushing it back up

Yoga is all about allowing this shakti to become unbound, to be freed and in order to do that we need to purify from that which is blocking it...our samskaras.

When consciousness merges with shakti=Chit Shakti= yoga

Singer reminds us that we  can dance at every single level of vibration

Every single situation you experience in a day is an opportunity to let go....

The reaason you take birth is to go back up with less than you came down with...

Purification is key...

All is well.

Michael Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True (September, 2025) The Dance of Shakti: Conscious Energy and Liberation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmhtc-1Vn5M&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=3

School of Hard Knocks?

 You want to give God a gift? Give Him your junk.

Michael A. Singer

Michael Singer reminds us in the below linked podcast, that the entire purpose of our birth is to go back up with less than what we came down with.

What the Fork, crazy lady? 

We are here in bodily form in this carnation that we call "my life" to purify Self of samskaras? We go through what we need to go through in order to grow. Growth is all about cleaning out and learning to allow Life to blow through without resistance.  If we are full of stuffed and stored junk, Life gets all snagged up in it as it passes through.  We will then resist, react, run from, avoid, distract by seeking outward, cling and create even more junk inside for Life to get all caught up in.  We do not grow! We become heavy with "worldly things". We go back up with more than what we came down with. This life...this incarnation becomes a wasted round.

It is a wasted round to go back up with more...

Earth is a school where souls come to evolve.  Just as students in a classroom are not expected to be perfect during the learning process, we are not expected to be perfect during the living process. It is a given that we will make mistakes, hand in messy work, fall behind and fail even.  We may get to the end of our school life without getting what we were here to get. And that is okay. We just come back andpick up where you left off. As long as we go back up with a little less junk than we came down with...we have grown.

You lose nothing of what you gained in your disciplined life

"I am not here to be perfect or not have trouble...I am here to learn."

So, in this school of "hard knocks" we are going to go through many challenges etc. Sometimes it will seem like we are being punished by Life...like the Universal Teacher is picking on us and making it hard for us to learn. The human we are in may convince itself and others that it had such a "hard life" for random reasons...but that is not the case.

Your past is the definition of what you needed to go through!

Everything you go through is not "personal" but at the same time it is there for your learning. 

You go through what God puts you through...

Each circumstance, each challenge, each so called "hardship" is there to test you in some way.

 Not about what happened ....it is about how you handle what happened

Your intent is to let go and release samskaras...your purpose is to do your best to relax into what is.

As we open to each challenge, accepting what Life gives us , seeing it as there for our learning...we will learn with each challenge, we will get better in our attempt to relax despite the tendency we have  to protect ourself. We will eventually resist less and accept more. We will start offering the samskaras up to Life circumstance...and utter things to the Universal Teacher like "Bring it on...and take this from me. too". We will advance in this school when we do this.

Every single situation is an opportunity to let go of yourself. 

All is well!

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sunds True ( Septemeber, 2025) The Perfect School: Life as the Path to Liberation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkSt0R662xw&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1&t=114s

Keep Looking Up Toward the Light

Whatever comes, good or bad, all will be turned to good if you see good and refuse to acknowledge the power of evil or trouble.

Yogananda

Huh?

Keep looking to God...which I see as the "Light of the Universe" when things seem dark and heavy. Look up...look to the light.

Look up away from the body, the "little me", the psyche, the thinking, the emotions, the problematic life situations...that you believe is you- and look up to who you really are!

God, goodness, light is always there even when it is difficult to see. Just make it your mission to keep looking for It...Look for the Light!

According to Murali Venkrato in the link below, reaching for the light is a "non-specific intervention". The spiritual path is always about turning away from the pull of the senses and outer world distraction, back to the Light of God.

Yogis will tell you that darkness and heaviness may be coiled like a snake around the base of the spine.  If you so wish, use Kriya yoga to raise that energy so it travels up the sushumna to the highest chakras.  If the ancient practice of  kriya yoga seems like woo-woo to you, do what you can to lift this energy up. It is about lifting energy up. Be like a plant with its helitropic tendencies...keep moving twowards the light. 

The light is always there ready to shine through any canopy, veil, or blockage we put in its way. Keep looking for it.  Make seeking this Light, your main goal in life.

There is always a way to open the door you closed to Light. And once that door is open ("awakening"), there is no closing it again. Seek the light!

And we know for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

All is well

Dr. Murali Venkatrao/Ananda Sangha Worldwide (2022) Narada, Krishna, and the Power of Maya. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PWHV_OQ38Y

All the Time Within You

 He whom the sages have been seeking in all these [external] places is in our own hearts; the voice that you heard was right, says the Vedanta, but the direction you gave to the voice was wrong. That ideal of freedom you perceived was correct but you projected it outside yourself, and that was your mistake. Bring it nearer and nearer, until you find that it was all the time within you, it was the Self of your own self. This freedom was your own nature and this maya never bound you.

Vivekananda

All is well

Maya and the Illusion of Time

Time, the avenger of everything, comes, and nothing is left. He swallows up the saint and the sinner, the king and the peasant, the beautiful and the ugly; he leaves nothing.

Vivekananda

Can I tell you a story about the illusion of time?  I am telling you anyway lol.

The Power of Maya

Once a long, long time ago there lived a divine sage called Narada.  Narada had a deep and questioning mind and wanted to know more about Maya...or the illusion of what appears to be so real.  One day he approached Lord Krishna and asked, "Oh Wise and Divine Being of the Light, could you show me Maya?" 

A few days passed before Lord Krishna asked Narada to make a trip with him into the dessert. They walked and walked over the dry and parched land for what seemed like days. Lord Krishna, at one point, turned to his student and said, "Narada, I am thirsty; can you travel into the nearest village to fetch some water for me please?" 

Narada, a loyal devotee to this Master said, "Of course my Lord, I will go at once to fetch you water?"

 Fetching his master water was the only thing on his mind for the first few miles he walked towards the village...Then slowly his mind began to wander onto thoughts about his own thirst, on how hot the sun was, and how long and challenging this course was. Still he perservered. "I must get my master water as soon as I can." 

Day fell into night and night fell into day until finally he reached the village boundary. 

He approached the door of the first house he came to. Blistered and exhausted from the trek and overcome by  his own need for water he knocked at the door. "I must get water for Lord Krishna," he kept reminding himself of his mission, "and also for myself. I will drink first and then I will bring the water back to Him straight away." 

A young and beautiful girl answered the door leaving the young Narada suddenly forgetful of why he was there. Her presence took his breath away and all other thoughts of his very thirsty master, who might be at this point ready to perish on the desert floor, escaped his mind.

"Yes?" the young woman questioned.

Narada could say nothing except for "uhmm, uhmm."

Suddenly a look of concern crossed her face."Oh my, you look like you have travelled for miles in the heat and sun.  You must deperately need water and a cool place to sit. Come in." 

She gestured for him to come inside.

And Narada did go in. He drank the water she offered and he sat in the cool place she provided for him. And they talked and they laughed and time went on. Day turned to night, and night to day, and day back to night, and night back in to day many times. Narada fell deeply in love with the young woman...totally forgeting the Master who took him into the dessert weeks before to show him Maya and who by this time must have succumbed to thirst. 

Narada soon met and received blessings for marriage from the young woman's father. He married her and had children with her. He worked with the father tending his field and minding his cows as the days and nights turned into weeks, and the weeks, into months and the months into years. When his father -in-law died, he took over the work and the house as his own. He continued to be blessed with children and had four healthy offspring as beautiful as his wife, and as happy and blessed as he. He never once thought of his Master and the request for water again.

Then on the twelfth year after he left the dessert, a massive flood hit the village. It swept through the village roads and lifted the houses, threatening to carry all things away in the rush of the stream. Narada knew he had to escape. He grabbed his wife who was holding a baby in one hand, two of his children in another, and placed a third child on his shoulders. He tried to walk through the tremendous torrent of water. After a few steps he found the current too strong. He stopped and the child on his shoulders fell over into the rushing waters and was carried away. Narada released a deep moaning cry of despair as he  fruitlessly reached out to save that child. While doing so he lost the grip on two of the other children and they pulled away into the force. "Oh no!' he wailed. He grasped and held tightly to his wife but the current pulled her away too. She, and the baby, too were swallowed up by the water, never to be saved. 

Suddenly Narada himself was caught by a wave and thrown onto the river's bank. Choking, weeping, and wailing in bitter lamentation he cried into the air. "All that I gained, all that I learned to love, all that I clung to over the last 12 years is gone! I have lost such a big portion of my life! How can I go on?" 

Then he put his face into the earth and cried. He cried and cried allowing his tears to soak the river bank.

Behind him there came a gentle familiar voice , "My child, where is the water? You went to fetch water for me thirty minutes ago and I am still waiting." 

Narada lifted his head and turned to see the kind patient face of his Master looking down at him, "Thirty minutes ?" he croaked disbelieving. "Too many nights, too many days, too many scenes, too many things  have passed my Lord, to happen within thirty minutes! I just lived through 12 years of tremendous joy and tremendous sorrow! "

To which Lord Krishna just lifted his shoulders and asked, "Did you?"  

With a gentle tap on the forehead from his Master, Narada suddenly 'woke up' and realized he was once again in the desert waking up from a dream.

"And this is Maya." Lord Krishna laughed. "And this is Maya."

All is well.

Vivekananda: 2.5 Jnana Yoga- Complete Works, Kindle Edition

Causation Comes After Effect Not Before?

 Time, space, and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen, and when it is seen on the lower side, It appears as the universe. ...In the Absolute there is neither time, space, or causation. The idea of time cannot be there, seeing there is no mind, no thought. The idea of space cannot be there, seeing there is no external change. What you call motion and causation cannot exist where there is only One....

What we call causation begins after, if we may be permitted to say so, the degeneration of the Absolute into the phenomenal, and not before; that our will, our desire and all these things always come after that.

Vivekananda (2.5 Jnana Yoga; Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Kindle Edition)

Cause comes after Effect and not before? 

Now that is something to think about. We think our will causes things to happen...move...but here we are being told that will is not the cause of things happening. According to the ancient Advaita, phenomena is already in motion when we desire something or  will it to be so? 

Blow the mind!

All is well

And this is Maya

 Like moths hurling themselves against the flame, we are hurling ourselves again and again into sense-pleasures, hoping to find satisfaction there. We return again and again with freshened energy;thus we go on, till crippled and cheated we die. And this is Maya.

In the desire to solve the mysteries of the universe, we cannot stop our questioning, we feel we must know and cannot believe that no knowledge is to be gained. A few steps, and there arises the wall of beginningless and endless time which we cannot surmount. A few steps, and there appears a wall of boundless space which cannot be surmounted, and the whole is irrevocably bound in by the walls of cause and effect. We cannot go beyond them. Yet, we struggle, and still have to struggle. And this is Maya. 

With every breath, with every pulsation of the heart, with every one of our movements, we think we are free, and the very same moment we are shown that we are not. Bound slaves, nature's bond-slaves, in body, in mind, in all our thoughts, in all our feelings. And this is maya.

Vivekananda (2.5 Jnana-Yoga; Complete works of Swami Vivekananda, Kindle Edition)

All is well

Divine Delay: Something Sacred Taking Place Inside

When things feel slow or stagnant, when prayers seem unanswered...when doors remain closed, it is not always a sign that something is wrong...sometimes it is the evidence that something sacred is taking place in the unseen.

Alan Watts

I often feel stuck, like I am being punished by life because what I dream of doesn't show up in my day to day reality....that nothing "positive" seems to be happening...that I am not moving forward into a "better life". I am not a big "dreamer" anymore. I no longer spend my days fantasizing and focusing on something up there in the future to happen for this human I call "me" that will satisfy it or make it feel fulfilled...but...still...I find myself wondering at times, "Why isn't more positive stuff happening for this "me"? Why is it so hard? Why can I not seem to move forward into a better life?"

I think of my writing. I have written so much over so many years. I have so much to share and I have shared so much but where are the fruits of my labour? ( I am not even sure what these fruits are supposed to be anymore...I have become so detached from outcome). There is definitely a very long delay in me receiving much for it, other than intrinsic validation for doing what I love and feel compelled to do...which is enough. Yet, when I struggle finacially I wonder sometimes what Life would be like if this human got paid for what I do. If there was some external validation or reward. I know I will write regardless but that thought sometimes will enter.  

Well, I listened to this video I was somehow drawn to and it alleviated a lot of these crazy notions. Have a listen.  I simply captured the teachings that resonated with me the most.  

There is a beauty in divine delay that we often miss because we are too focused on the destination. The delay gives you depth. It sharpens your discernment. It reveals your motives. It teaches you to appreciate what cannot be rushed and in that space between asking and receiving something transformative happens. You become more than a person with a dream. You become capable of becoming someone stewarding that dream with wisdom, grace and strength. 

You didn't lose the opportunity. You were spared the burden. You didn't miss your moment.  It simply wasn't the right one yet. 

If you can see the delay as a cacoon, rather than a coffin you will emerge, not only with what you prayed for but with a spirit refined enough to carry it well.

It doesn't promise we will safe.  It promises that we will be guided...

You are not waiting for the life. Life is waiting for you....that is the great paradox

Divine timing is not about reward. It's about readiness...it is about who you are becoming in the process of waiting...delay does not mean denial it often means development. Life is not witholding from you...it is preparing you. ...

I realized as I listened to this wisdom...that I was never ready as a human ego to receive external reward for what I write. The reward or recognition I once dreamed of would have harmed me, more than helped me.  It would be like someone taking the butterfly out of the cacoon too soon, before its wings were developed enough to fly.   I am still percolating in here, developing, preparing to accept what the universe has in store for this human being...and I have no idea what that is. I am developing the wisdom, grace, and strength to accept what Life wants me to carry. My little reactive ego loaded with samskara would have destroyed what writing gives me...if these so-called dreams of "literary success" came true too soon. My whole definition of "literary success" is changing as I change.

 As I sit in this cacoon, this delay in divine timing, I know I am not yet ready for whatever that success might be. I am still shedding my caterpillar tendencies ( my ego, my "me-ness") so the butterfly can emerge full and whole enough to fly. That butterfly, is the higher Self, I am morphing into it.  That might be the only reward I need.

I am thinking of and repeating this  mantra of faith: I release what I cannot control and I trust what I cannot see...[Knowing that]Life is not something to be controlled but something to be danced with...[I give up control and I dance with Life, letting it lead me across the dance floor]

All is well

Alan Watts/Inspire Rise (September 15, 2025) Relax-The Life You Once Begged For Awaits You. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPynaSTaVxs