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

Get to the Root

 

If you want a tree to grow it won't help to water the leaves. You have to water the roots.

Thich Nhat Hanh.

To that I add, if you want to remove a weed (a so-called problem) you have to get to the root and remove that. If you pull the surface leaves away, the weed can still grow; the garden has not been cleaned up; and we just have a temporary and shallow 'appearance' of a tidy garden. The problem, however, has not been solved. 

When we find external bandaid solutions to our so called problems or experience of suffering by finding something "out there" to cling to...or by pushing away something out there that we feel might disturb us...we are not solving anything. This is not the solution. It will actually lead to more suffering.  We need to get to the root and the root is desiring things to be a way other than what they are.

Desire is the root of all suffering

The Buddha

Singer tells us that waking up means that you recognize that the problem is inside.

A person who thinks the problem is outside of them is not a spiritual person; a person who recognizes that all problems are inside is a spiritual person. 

The thing is, just as the weed doesn't go away because we no longer can see it when we cut off the leaves, problems do not go away when we stuff them down and away from conscious awareness as we do with our clinging and averting.

Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.  

Sigmund Frued

This process of pushing down and away so emotions remain unexpressed, we know, is not only unhealthy, it keeps us stuck in suffering patterns. We hear the word suppression a lot in both psychology and yogic terminology.

Frued was really the definer of repression, more so than suppression. Frued defined repression (the defense mechaninism that leads to samskara formation and that which he focused on in his research) as "turning something away and keeping it a distance from the conscious". 

Later in the field of psychoanalysis, repression was considered an unconscious and automatic act while suppression was defined as "the conscious effort  to avoid or block distressing thoughts, feelings and impulses from conscious awareness." It was the deliberate pulling away of unpleasant leaves from the mental garden so they are not seen. 

That is why yogis may focus more on avoiding the act of suppression, seeing that we have conscious control over that process. Healing and living is all about getting to the root. 

What is the root of your action, chronic thought pattern, or emotional response? 

A samskara: a stuffed and stored emotional energy that is not dealt with is at the root of suffering. Samskara is what activates the desire for superficial relief through gaining or pushing away something from the external world. This is what the Buddha meant by "desire".

Healing, then, is not an external endeavour. Seeking and clinging to outside events to make us feel better is not the answer. It offers only a very conditional, temporary, and superficial solution to the weed problem.  We need to get to the root!

The first stage of waking up is noticing that it is a mess in there, [and then we begin]looking for a way to be better in there. 

We become inspired to work on ourselves at the root. We begin going deeper to pull out our weeds at the root. This equates to the purification process. Of course, we do not aggressively reach down and pull out everything we suppressed or repressed over the years. We allow Life to tug and pull at those hidden emotional energies a bit and we allow which we suppressed to come up onto the surface of our awareness when it is ready.  We experience and deal with samskaras and then we allow the wind to blow them away.  We actually have to do little gardening, little weeding.  Life will do most of it.  We just need to allow Life to do what it does and to feel and experience what it exposes. Allowing Life to do what it does, is the opposite of desire.

Once we remove what is in the way, other Life affirming things can grow. We begin to allow shakti to grow and flow within us...like an amazing tree that expands toward the heavens. And just as we removed the problem at the root we nurture this natural, healing solution to all so called problems at the root. We trace the mighty trunk of this tree back to its Source.

All is well.

Michael Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( September 11, 2025) The Mind Isn't the Problem-It's That You Are Listening To It. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH6JoZJmm38

Ready to Leave the Woods

 I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it is because I lived there long enough.

Henry David Thoreau

I do not know how much time I have left on this planet and am being pulled to do what I feel I am here to do.  I am not even sure what that is lol.  What I do know, it isn't what I am doing now, drowning in the drama others are creating and feeding, in toxicity, in stuckness. As much as I love this yard with its magnificent trees, its wildlife, its peaceful arms that I just long to be in...as much as I love the woods so close to this house that have comforted me, healed me, and inspired me as I walked along its many trails over the 28 years I lived in this neighborhood...as much as I love this writing corner on my dining room table with the light pouring through the windows all around me...I know I need to remove this physical body from this space so I, and most importantly, others can heal and grow. 

How I clung to this space with white knuckles and fear over the last 16 years I lived here in this house.  So many times I felt the threat of losing it and so many times I clung against all odds. At the same time, I never loved or cared enough for the house itself. Besides the yard and this one spot...the house was always more of a chore and a responsibility that I failed in keeping up than a "home" for my soul to settle in. Still, I clung...for others sake...thinking I needed to provide and protect others when all I was really doing was holding them back from facing the challenges necessary to take them farther on their own journeys. I somehow created a place of stuckness instead of a home. Sigh! 

So, I made a decision to let go, to offer up these walls to someone I love and their family.  They, I hope, will make it into the home it was meant to be. I am not selling, per say, I am creating an opportunity for another who is struggling while at the same time removing myself as an obstacle in the way of others' growth.  That makes more sense to me.  I am not seeking material gain from this transaction...I am seeking something far greater -  peace and relief. 

My most important priority in life is my practice of finding peace, love, and truth. That, I believe, is the greates thing I can do for everyone. For some reason, I cannot practice fully here inside these walls. I cannot seem to grow or expand in this mission.

I believe this decision is a soul inspired one...not an egoic escape.  I believe I am being pulled because it will be in the highest good of all involved to leave these familiar woods. (Some of the others might not recognize that yet but I do).

All is well.

Aligned and Shaped By Life's Currents

 Life's currents are shaping you. Sometimes gently, sometimes with force...always with purpose.

Alan Watts

I have been thinking about how to fill this gap left by the loss of the little job, the loss of this EAL focus possibly, the loss of acivity with something else. I was trying to fill in the suddenly empty room with furniture; the space with substance; trying to fill in the silence with noise, the inactivity with activity. I was asking about what changes do I need to make in this Life  for the better of all. I was pondering this as well as the idea that maybe there is some prior agreed upon plan to our existence that we just cannot understand with our limited human minds. Maybe everything is happening for a reason.

Then I happened upon this from Alan Watts. So much wisdom in 30 minutes of speaking. Sigh! I copied what I felt resonated with me during these contemplations with some degree of expectation that they may also resonate with you.

The right people cannot arrive if you are endlessly entertaining the wrong ones; the right opportunities cannot appear if your hands are full of things you secretly wish to let go of.

The unfolding is not random, it is intimate, precise, and purposeful.

You are not late, you are not missing out.

The right people are already on their way carrying with them conversations, laughter, and connection that will change your life. The right opportunities are already moving toward you, quietly aligning themselves with your path, waiting for the moment you are ready to meet them...destined to cross paths with you at the moment both your courses align...the chasing does not  hasten the meeting it often delays it. 

Alignment flows from trust and presence...deeper intelligence at work...that works beyond the calculations of your conscious mind

Trust allows you to rest in the knowing that movement is happening even when your senses cannot yet detect it.

The problem comes when the mind, impatient and unwilling to wait, forces us into situations that do not resonate...that is how we end up surrounded by the wrong people, those who cannot truly see us, or stuck in opportunities that feel heavy rather than alive. The irony is that we do this because we fear nothing better is coming...but by clinging to the wrong we close the door to the right. 

Trusting the natural flow is an act of release. It is choosing not to hold on to what does not feel right even when letting go creates temporary emptiness.

The silence is space for alignment.

Trusting the flow= participating with awareness, taking inspired steps...you show up to life...you explore...you learn...you create...but you release the belief that you must control the outcome...you let your actions be expressions of who you are, not frantic attempts to manipulate the time line.

Certain doors close without much noise.

Wisdom in emptiness....the absence you feel is not a loss without purpose but a space being carved for the right thing to enter...(don't rush to fill in that space) to trust stillness is to resist that impulse.

Clinging to the wrong, closes the door to what is right

Life speaks in subtle ways...an inner nudge, a quiet curiosity, a recurring thought you cannot shake. These signals often get lost in the noise of endless activity but in stillness they rise to the surface.  You begin to notice what you truly miss and what you do not. You see which relationships you yearn for and which ones you only maintained out of habit. You recognize the kind of opportunities that excite you and the kind that merely keep you busy. This clarity is part of the preparation.  It ensures that when the right people and opportunities arrive you will recognize them instantly...not becasue they are the loudest or most glamorous but becasue they resonante with the truth of who you are. And here is the paradox: the right people and opportunities are not only looking for you but they too require preparation.

The timing is not just about you...it is about the weaving together of countless other lives and moments all aligning to create the perfect point of connection.

...to care for yourself in ways you never did when you were always rushing and this self tending changes your energy.

There is a quiet kind of courage to letting go of what is not meant for you

There is a deeper wisdom in knowing when to release your grip...when to stop pouring yourself into something that drains you rather than nourishes you.

The right people and opportunities cannot arrive when your arms are wrapped tightly around what is misaligned.

To cling to the wrong is to signal to Life that you do not trust it to bring you something better.

The right opportunities will not demand that you shrink to fit them.

Staying in what drains you is not loyality...it is fear disguised as committment.

You are not being denied...you are being shaped...every experience you pass through, every challenge you endure, every quiet moment of uncertainty is chiseling away what does not belong, refining you into the version of yourself you will be able to receive, hold, and grow with what is meant for you.

There are skills you are still learning, wounds you are still healing, perspectives you are still gaining. All of which will make you a better match for what is ahead....This refining is not punishment, it is alignment

Life is always preparing you, even in moments that seem empty or aimless...

Every day that you live you are being given pieces of yourself that you will need later - strength you didn't know you had, wisdom you didn't know you were gaining, and a deeper connection to what truly matters.

When the moment finally comes it will feel like it could not have been any other way...you will see how the timing was perfect, how the lessons you learned were exactly what you needed; how the struggles you endured gave you the depth to appreciate what is in front of you and you will understand that the delay was never a denial. It was a gift, a gift that ensured you would not only meet the right people and embrace the right opportunities but that you would be ready to keep them, nurture them, and grow along side them for as long as they are meant to be in your life.

What is meant for you cannot pass you by. The things that truly belong to you, whether they are people, opportunities, or experiences are woven into the fabric of your life in such a way that they will arrive at the exact moment they are supposed to. Not a second sooner. Not a second later. The arrival happens in its own perfect moment and no amount of worry, force, or impatience will make it come faster.

Fear clouds your ability to see and to feel what is already unfolding for you.

I am beginning to see that everything is unfolding beautifully in "my" life. I am not being punished by challenges.  I am being carved and molded into the being I wish to be. I see how I am growing...how easy it is to lose and let go of things when I am not attached to outcome...like that little job I had, like the tooth...

There are other things I am loosening my grip on too and I am welcoming the sacred space that is opening up for me as I do. 

It is all good.

All is well.

Alan Watts/ Inspire Rise (September, 2025) Relax- The Right People oand Luxuries are Already Coming To You.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trwAIcEbO1M

Inspiration to Serve

 When you are inspired- in spirit-everything is working.

Wayne Dyer

 

Seize every opportunity you can to make your life one of purpose....and align that purpose with the universal field of intention.

Wayne Dyer

I am seeking a new inspiration...a new focus...a new way of being in spirit.

Sigh!

All is well

Small but Challenging Lessons from the Teacher

 

Life is a succession of lessons that must be lived to be understood.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Saying goodbye to a tooth later on today.  I have mixed feelings.  I am so appreciative of finally getting to the end of this "strange tale of truth and tooth", and for the dentist helping me out.  I will be so glad to have the infection out of my mouth at last so there are no more antibiotics in my future...at least for a while. (I tend to get a pneumonia in late fall, early winter...sigh). My gut is thankful lol. I am also apprehensive. I am vain enough to worry about how a missing tooth will impact my smile...one physical attribute that I appreciate in this body. This smile somehow allows the light in me that isn't all snagged up in "my stuff" to free flow and shine through. Will I be able to get past my ego to smile anyway? Regardless, just  another lesson from the universe I suppose.  

Hey, universe...are you this hard on all the other students in the class? 

Yeah...that crossed my mind: this idea that the Universe was picking on me.  My energy is down...life circumstances seem heavy and weighing down on this human I call "me". I just found out that I will not be returning to the little job I invested so much in over the last two years. It might even be an end to my aspirations to go further helping with EAL.  What I created and offered, I guess, are not needed. Which I knew would be a possibility. Copies of the book I wrote on a "grand impulse" and  told myself from the beginning that I would not be attached to whatever outcome came from it, are just there collecting dust.  Reality hit again when I was told I would not be needed as a tutor...Even though, I also told myself that this was just something I was doing to serve the moment "now" and that I would not expect anything more than that from it, I find myself strangely sad that it is over. I enjoyed the experience tremendously and I do believe I offered a lot. I served. That should be reward enough and I am sure I will know that fully someday. 

I am grateful for those experiences. But now that the "hope" that once added a little light in my life is gone I feel a little heavy. This thought I had at the beginning of this adventure, carried in a balloon of my own making:  "Maybe the EAL  will provide an external purpose for this human I call "me" in a variety of different upcoming experiences pulling me up and away from this seemingly downward trajectory, as well as provide a worthwhile service where it is needed," has popped and is floating away. The hope( and the added income) has fizzled away into reality. I am feeling a little lost. "What do I do now?" 

A mind at war against itself remembers not eternal gentleness...ACIM Chapter 23.1

Even though I am fully aware of the illusive nature of "hope"...it added something to this life of challenging circumstances. It gave me a purpose and a distraction away from all the unpleasant stuff I am constantly having to deal with. Without it, I, as the "little self",  feel somewhat deflated...so I turn to greater Self and ask, 

"Now what? What do you want me to do with this life now?" 

 That job you lost wasn't a tradegy, it was the Universe's way of rerouting you, taking you back to your higher purpose... back to God. Wayne Dyer ( Totally paraphrased)

The answers will come, I know.  I know...that it is the deflation of this little self that I have been asking for and praying for. Still...for some odd reason, having this tooth removed today feels like having the teacher pick on me a little more when I am already feeling down. Vanity is another small but hard lesson to master. Sigh! 

The problem is we have been taught to see Life as a series of randome events-good luck and bad luck-...things that happen to us rather than for us...We have forgotten that we are not victims of circumstance but active participants in a cosmic dance where every step, every stumble, every graceful movement is a part of a larger choreography designed to help us grow...to help us remember who we really are. Wayne Dyer

I want to believe in the curriculum even if I do not understand its design. I want to trust that Life, as  the teacher, knows best...that every challenging lesson...big or small...is there to help me learn and grow. I will learn that. I will.

All is well. 

Beyond Limitation

Man feels, consciously or unconsciously, that he is bound; he is not what he wants to be. It was taught to him at the very moment he began to look around. That very instant he learnt that he was bound, and he also found that there was something in him which wanted to fly beyond, where the body could not follow, but which was as yet chained down by this limitation. 

Vivekananda

He is a Being beyond the limitation of nature, of Maya, 

We are awareness, Michael Singer tells us...the Self is called the Seer.

The problem is that which we are seeing and perceiving the world through is a very cloudy and dirty lens. So what we see as the world is a cloudy and dirty version of what is. What we see, then, is Maya, illusion...rather than reality.  The mind is also a semi-permeable membrane...allowing only so much in, attempting to keep so much out, depending on what this judging mind determines as pleasant or unpleasant. What we see and perceive then is a very limited and "bound" world and we see and understand our existence to be limited and bound in it. 

The world has to come through your mind for you to see it...through the filter of your mind for you to perceive it. 

Michael Singer

So what do we need to do to get beyond this limited version of self? We need to make sure that filter is clear. We need to clean that which is in the way of us seeing who we are.

All is well

Michael Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True (September, 2025) Awareness: The Essence of the Spiritual Path. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1JH4kHgXcg&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=2

Vivekananda (n.d.) 2.5 Jnana Yoga. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekanada. Kindle Edition

A Pirate's Life

 Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and be good, God would permit us to be pirates.

Mark Twain

I love getting to know the history of any place I visit. While away on th Eastern shores of Newfoundland I became fasicinated with the history of a place formly known as Cat Harbour...or what the French in the 1700's referred rto as "Wrecking Bay". Amongst the stories of the sad end of  the Island's original first nation's group-the Beothuks, the many ship wrecks that landed in the harbour and those who plundered them, the lives of ferocious, determined  people who settled these dangerous shores against all odds,  and the battles between the Orange and Green settlers leading to exilation of the Irish Catholics from these parts, there is a story of a pirate named Billy Murne. 

Billy somehow landed on these shores in the early to mid 1800's. It is said he escaped the plank, and came to this isolated area with a cache of stolen gold.  It is believed he buried his treasure somewhere along the craggy and rocky shoreline, going to his death with the secret of its whereabouts. The following is a tale that has been told amongst the peoples of Lumsden, Pound Cove, and Dead Man's Bay for centuries. I felt inspired to put it to verse.

Billy Murne's Secret

The old pirate, lifting his head, pulled his nurse close enough to hear .

With desperate voice and weary body, he whispered in her ear.

“Can you keep a secret, my luv?” he asked, strong liquor on his breath,

Both knew, the land stranded Billy Murne would soon be facing death.

With wide eyes of greed, and an excited beating in her chest

Young Helen Gray leaned over her charge and quietly whispered “ yes. “

Across her dirty face was painted the most beautiful of smiles

For at long last her hard work, she thought, would prove to be worthwhile

Searching his wrinkled face and closing eyes, she waited for the word;

For the moment the whereabouts of his buried gold would finally be heard

At last, with a toothless open mouth and a voice sonorous and weak

Billy looked into her eyes and he began to speak.

"Well, Helen luv, this declaration just might make you cry."

With one last breath and a triumphant grin, Billy croaked,

"Aye, so can I?"

At last, the world is full of stories isn't it?  These stories make our history (and her story). Crooks, thieves, and plunderers are a part of the history of this nation. Like Mark Twain quotes, above many of us dream of the Life of a pirate, don't we? Or at the very least, the finding of a pirate's treasure.

I'm dishonest and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest.

Captain Jack Sparrow.

All is well!

The Timeless Beauty of NewFoundland

 

True beauty is timeless; it does not age, it merely evolves.

unknown

    (Shot on Fogo Island...as we were moving along...jpeg images, raw have yet to be processed.)

And this is why they call it the rock!

A Message from Another World...

 Well b'y, how's it cutting? Owshegettinonb'y? Let me tell ya before ya get me all drove and salty.  This trip is the best kind, lovely grand. It's the proper ting for all ya to get screeched in o'r here at now da once. Nar thing better than draw-latching along the coast of this rock some day on clothes. The rugged beauty would stun ya my luv. I dies at the way people talk around these parts. What a sin ya cant hear it. Oh shag it, I will see ya when I get back. duckie. Slue!

Just Rocks?

"Stay where you are til I come for ya!"

 Greetings from NL. Some of the rocks that form the coast line here date back to precambian times, meaning they could be 4.6 billion years old...if not that old they are about 550 million years old. Go figure. I am intrigued by these rocks so I have been trying to shoot them as we fly along the coast line at 80-100 km an hours...thus the poor quality of shots. 

All is well

The Journey of Calamity Jane and Jeopardy Jack

 

But only one thing is certain; the mighty river is rushing towards the ocean, and all the drops that constitute the stream will in time be drawn into the boundless ocean. So, in this life, with all its miseries and sorrows, its joys and smiles and tears, one thing is certain, that all things are rushing toward their goal, and it: is only a question of time when you and I, and plants and animals, and every particles of life that exists must reach the Infinite ocean of Perfection, must attain to freedom, to God.

Vivekananda

I do not know where exactly this mighty river is taking us but man it pulls hard some times, doesn't it?  D. and I might wish to change our names to "Calamity Jane, and Jeopardy Jack" as we are swept along. It is absolutely uncanny: the number and intensity of "things" that we experienced together in the last ten years...crazy big things so few people in the world experience to this intensity and extent...in one decade. It's movie making stuff lol. 

And it keeps pulling....

We were meant to go away today...an escape from all "this"... but Life had different plans for us.  I have another infection in my mouth ...took less than a week at the end of the 6th round of antibiotics since April to manifest...and I was hestitantly going to risk ignoring it even though I knew we would not have access to health care where we were going...pretty rural. I really do not want to go on another round of antibiotics...my belly is wrecked...but I woke up this morning with the gums even more  swollen again and that pain in my cheek saying, "IE, IE, IE"! Ugh!!! So, I called the dentist and I got in for an appointment today!! That's good because I feel fevered...not sure if it is the mouth or the gut leading to this feeling like crap? 

As I said, I would have ignored it and taken my chances...but ironically D. woke up with what I thought was pleurisy that has been going on for the last couple of nights. I encouraged him to go off to the ER early this am. I cannot do much driving because I still do not have full ROM in my neck...still cannot look over my shoulders...so he is going to be the only driver or at least the dominant driver on this trip. I couldn't allow that if he was in pain and unwell. Crap!! So, we rearranged our bookings, fortunately,  and are going to try to sneak off tomorrow! Hopefully, we are both feeling better by then. Sigh! Otherwise it will be a big loss in many ways.

So, the journey of Calamity Jane and Jeopardy Jack continues as they bob and thrash along in this river of Life with all its miseries and sorrows, its joys, smiles and tears. No doubt, we will someday reach that Infinite Ocean where we will find perfection, freedom, and God. We will then fully realize that all these so called challenges were necessary to our growth. We will be transformed into "Joyful Jane and Jubilant Jack". We will eventually see the unnecessity for the titles "Jane and Jack" and just be joyful and jubilant Life. 

All s well.

No Answer to "Who Am I?"

 

Any answer to the question, "Who am I?"...means you didn't get it.

Eckhart Tolle

We are supposed to get to the point where we do not know who we are...[concepts and judgements fall away and without them how do we "know" anything?]

Have the courage to not know who you are.

There is a direct knowing and there is a knowing "about". Knowing "about" is not knowing. It is simply conceptualizing.

Knowing is the "felt experience of." Gnosis means "awareness"...and some say it means the "knowledge of the spiritual mysteries".  I prefer awareness to knowledge. Awareness is feeling who we are, being who we are as opposed to just knowing things about this human we call" me"; as opposed to conceptualizing who we are.

We  have to go into the deeper knowing which I see as the "felt experience" of. When we ask "who am I"...we do not wait for the mind to list a bunch of fun facts about the body and personality.  We do not wait for an answer.  We simply fall into the question and feel whatever comes up. Hmm!

All is well. 

Eckhart Tolle ( August, 2025) The Only Real Failure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVPveDVk9Ms&t=47s

What Yoga Is?

 Atha Yoganusasanam

Yogas citta vrtti nirodhah

The first two sutras in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Translated : 1. Now the exposition of Yoga is being made....2. The Restraint of the modification of the mind-stuff is Yoga

The definition of Yoga according to Satchidananda's translation as listed in the glossary at the end of "The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali" is as follows:

Yoga= (lit.union) union of the individual with the Absolute; any course that makes for such union; unruffled state of mind under all conditions. 

So Yoga is  "union" which is Oneness. Breaking that definition of Union down farther, there are three things Yoga is:

1. union of the individual with the Absolute

2. any course that makes such a union

3. unruffled state of mind under all conditions.

1. Union of the individual with the Absolute?

Yoga is about realizing that all is One...there is no separation. One of the toughest things for us to get past is this idea of separation and individuality. 

What you call the external world is as much you as your own body.  Your skin does not separate you, it is a bridge from which the external world flows into you and you flow into it.

Alan Watts

This is one quote that made me visualize that I was not separate from others.  I have been working on that concept of separation for years. I always knew at some level I cannot explain that we are not separated by body lines yet I could never "explain" it, "see" it in this very limited version of mind I personalized and called "my mind," I did a lot of crazy things with this mind...but one of the craziest things I did was create a "personal version " of this expansive and Absolute mind, from that I created a "me", and from there I made this amazing Life "all about me". I focused on the separate "me"  at the exclusion of focusing on the Absolute within me.  Through this attachment to the idea of separation. I could not see there never was a "me" ...just this Absolute experiencing Itself through this human. 

To see that these bodies are just bridges...a means of experiencing our connection to this Oneness of all...that the senses allow us to experience it all, is very eye-opening.  The senses are not meant to create this need for preference and aversion that we tend to use them for. They are meant to allow the Absolute to experience Iself through us...and we are that Absolute that is experiencing...therefore It is the Absolute experiencing Itself...This is Union.  This is Oneness. 

If I am not separate by skin from the external world,  I am not separate from anything. I am not separate from Reality, from Life, from God. Coming to that realization, what Maharshi called, "Self-realization" is Yoga. This flows into the third Sutra in Patanjali's Sutras: 

Then the seer (Self) abides in Its own nature.

This, then, takes us to the second part of Patanjali's definition of Yoga.

2. Any Course that makes such a union? 

How do we get to this realization? 

I love this for the lack of specific direction it provides.  Yoga is "Any Course". It doesn't define one path as the right path, and another as the wrong. Patanjali offers a path through his eight limbs but he never proposes that this is the only way. The Indian culture from which Yoga emerged has always been the most open culture to religious diversity. 

Truth is One, Paths are Many.

Whatever sadhanna we practice, whatever path we follow, what every religious doctrine we identify with...if we are seeking the One Truth, the Absolute...we are on the right path. 

3. Unruffled state of mind under all conditions?

We are here to accept, allow, honor, and appreciate reality as it is. Do we tend to do that? No...we tend to decide how Life should be to make us feel okay inside. When it isn't that way we resist it. We resist it. We become reactive and disturbed.  

In order to get to Truth we need to remove what is in the way of Truth.  Truth...the Absolute is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.  It is is everywhere. It goes no where. We have simply created a veil of reactivity and disturbance over it.  We have focused our attention away from it and this disturbance and reactivity grows between us in this idea of "individual self " and the "Absolute Self".  We begin to desire certain "conditions" and be aversive to others. We have created modifications. Our minds are "ruffled".  

We are not meant to be "ruffled".  Our purest and most natural state is that of the still lake on which all ripples emerge. We need to unruffle so we can maintain peace-an unruffled state of mind under all conditions. This is Yoga.

If you can control the rising of the mind into ripples, you will experience Yoga, Patanjali,pg 3

So our practice is not about looking out there for the answers to our so called problems. It is all about, as Singer often teaches, looking inward to discover why we have problems in the first place. Why are our states of mind so often ruffled?

They are ruffled because we have become distracted by this "little me" and all its drama. The expansive, Absolute, still lake is distracted by the ripples on its surface.  We, as human beings, are identifying as one tiny ripple on the surface...and we got lost in this false notion that "it is all about me". 

You got distracted by you. Your consciousness got distracted by you....and the fact that you are distracted by you, means you suffer. Singer 

We fail to see that we are not the ripple but the still lake on which the ripple emerged. How can something so magnificent lose its focus in something so tiny and insignificant? 

You are not okay because you are focusing on something in the universe that is not okay. Singer

We have the ability to get beyond the ruffling, the ripples, the mental modifications and misdirected focus to that which is Absolute. Doing so is Yoga.

Patanjali, of course, goes on in his sutras to describe Raja yoga which is simply one Path to take.  This path has eight limbs to it.  They are Yama (abstinence from violence, dishonesty, stealing, immorality, and greed.), Niyama (observance of purity, contentment, acceptance of but not causing pain, study, worship and self-surrender to God), Asana (posture practice as seen in Hatha Yoga), Pranayama (breath control), Pratyahara (withdrawal from the senses), Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation), and Samadhi (contemplation, absorption, superconscious state). 

Yoga is one Path to take but again the word "Yoga" is just a pointer, pointing to something that really cannot be explained or understand until we experience it. 

Regardles of how we get there Yoga is all about becoming okay inside.

Something to think about!

All is well.

Sri Swami Satchidananda (2011) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Intergral Yoga Publications: Yogaville, Virginia

Michael Singer ( August 30, 2025) Becoming Okay Inside. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofz7-QWiDFc&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

Gems of Wisdom

 

When a man dies, there is a dispute.One party declares he has gone forever, the other insists that he is still living. Which is true?

Katha Upanishad

I have been mining: listening and reading. I have been hitting these jewels of wisdom that leave me questioning. I bring them to the surface and I lay them before you. Can you see their brilliance? 

(The V is a quote from Vivekananda and the S is indicating a quote from Michael Singer.)

It is the God within your own self that is propelling you to seek for Him, to realise Him. V

He for whom you have been seeking all over the world, for whom you have been weeping and praying in churches and temples, on whom you were looking as mystery of all mysteries shrouded in the clouds, is nearest of the near, is your own Self, the reality of your life, body, and soul. That is your own nature. V

The world vanishes in a moment and is gone. Standing on the brink of a precipice beyond which isthe infinite yawning chasm, every mind, however hardened, is bound to recoil and ask, "Is this real?"V

...when man realises that so long as there is one life in this universe, he is living. When he can say, "I am in every-thing, in everybody, I am in all lives, I am the universe," then alone comes the state of fearlessness.

There is no individuality except in the Infinite. That is the only condition which does not change. Everything else is in a constant flux. V

You are not what you are defining yourself as, you are that which defined who you are S

People feel frightened when they are told that they are a Universal Being, everywhere present. Through everything you work, through every foot you move, through every lip you talk, through every heart you feel. V

The different philosophies seem to agree that this Atman, whatever it be, has neither form or shape, and that which has neither form or shape must be omnipresent. V.

Time, space and causation, therefore, are in the mind, and as the Atman is beyond the mind and formless, it must be beyond time, beyond space, and beyond causation. Now, if it is beyond time, space, and causation, it must be infinite...The infinite cannot be two. If the soul be infinite, there can be only one Soul, and all ideas of various souls- you having one soul, and I having another, and so fourth-are not real. The Real Man, therefore, is one and infinite, the omnipresent Spirit. And the apparent man is only a limitation of that Real Man...a dim reflection of the Real Man who is beyond. V

The Real Man, the Spirit, being beyond cause and effect, not bound by time and space, must, therefore, be free. He was never bound, and could not be bound. The apparent man, the reflection, is limited by time, space, and causation, and is, therefore, bound...he appears to be bound but really is not V.....

Every soul is infinite, therefore there is no question of birth and death. V

Change can only be in the limited...Motion is always a relative thing. I move in relation to something else...but take this whole universe as one, and in relation to what can it move? There is nothing beside it. So this infinite universe is unchangeable, immovable, absolute, and this is the Real man. Our reality, therefore, consists in the universal and not in the limited. V. ....

As soon as I think that I am a little body, I want to preserve it, to protect it, to keep it nice, at the expense of other bodies; then you and I become separate. As soon as this idea of separation comes, it opens the door to all mischief and leads to all misery. V.

Behind all these stories we find one idea standing supreme- that man is a degeneration of what he was. v.

You are a Great Being. You have no needs...S

What is the force?

All it is, is one Consciousness vibrating at different levels. S

To say that the force called soul is the out come of the combinations of the molecules of the body is putting the cart before the horse. How did the combinations come; where was the force to make them? V

Quantum field is physical plane...consciousness is higher vibration deeper than the quantum field. S

The beginning position is consciousness.... Singer

...This bright body did not represent the force. Whatsoever has form must be the result of a combination of particles and requires some thing else behind it to move it. If this body requires something that is not the body to manipulate it, the bright body, by the same necessity, will also requite something other than itself to manipulate it. So, that something was called the soul, the  Atman in Sanskrit. ...V

The bright body is considered the receptacle of the mind, and the Atman is beyond that. It is not the mind even; it works the mind, and through the mind the body. V.

There never was a person who found happiness in the senses or in enjoyment of the senses. Happiness is only found in the Spirit. Therefore, the highest utility for mankind is to find this happiness in the Spirit. V.

Consciousness is One...vibrates at different levels  and becomes aware of Itself in different objects. S.

Thoughts are a certain vibration rate in the mental plane.  Emotions vibrate even faster.  S. 

Different planes of reality = different vibration rates. S.

Thoughts don't exist on the physical plane...S.

As soon as I think I am a little body, I want to preserve it, to protect it, to keep it nice, at the expense of other bodies; then you and I become separate. As soon as this idea of separation comes, it opens the door to all mischief and leads to all misery. V.

Let them make the sacrifice, knowing that this "me and mine" is not the real Self, but only a limitation. V.

You a great being don't settle with being a little thing that is caught down here. S

[Charity towards others is the  unconscious acting out of ] "I am the universe; this universe is one." V.

It cannot be known; in vain we try to know it. Were it knowable, it would not be what it is, for it is the eternal subject. Knowledge is a limitation, knowledge is objectifying. He is the eternal subject of everything, the eternal witness in this universe, your own Self. Knowledge is, as it it were, a lower step, a degeneration. We are the eternal subject already; how can we know it? V.

You are pure Consciousness...You are consciousness and consciousness is God...S

Every good thought that you think or act upon is simply tearing the veil, as it were; and the purity, the Infinity, the God behind, manifests Itself more and more...Finer and finer becomes the veil, more and more of the light behind shines forth, for it is its nature to shine. V. 

"I can handle it". That is your mantra. S

I may at some point delve deeper into each of these gems of wisdom...for now...just observe how they shine. 

All is well!

Michael Singer/ Temple of teh Universe/ Sounds True ( August, 2025) From False Identification to Liberation- Returning to the Seat of Self. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWG3nGGpBW4&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=2

Vivekanada (n,d.) 2.5 Jnana Yoga- Complete Works of Swamin Vivekananda. Kindle Edition. 

Why Weep?

 Why weepest thou, my friend? There is neither birth nor death for thee. Why weepest thou? There is no disease nor misery for thee, but thou art like the infinite sky; clouds of various colours come over it, play for a moment, then vanish. But the sky is ever the same eternal blue.

Vivekananda

I have been weeping over the last few days. My poor old dog is reaching the end of her life span and as I pet her I weep knowing that I will first have to make a decision about ending her time here (I hate making these decisions) and I will miss her when she is gone. 

I weep over the diseases in this body that make it pain and ache and break. My neck has been extra sore since I was running around with the grandkids the other day.  My belly is also not feeling so well post antbiotic. Sigh! I wonder how long this body will last and if I even care?

I weep over the misery that surrounds me in suffering and addicted persons, those still struggling to have their custody rights asserted, and those struggling with Life in general(including this "me").

Then I wipe my eyes as I read these words. I remember there is no death; there is no disease or no misery. There is just an infinite blue sky to rest our weary human heads upon.  

All is well!

A Brace for Life

 The mind is just like a muscle- the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets, and the more it can expand.

Idowu Koyenikan

Sitting here in some degree of physical discomfort. I overdid it with the grandkids yesterday and am feeling it in my neck today. I have the collar on and I leave it on for a few hours a day, mostly to realign a neck spine that is collapsing forward. I put the collar on and its like "Yes! This is the position I am constantly putting the chins of my yoga students in.  Ths is the perfect alignment! I should get my students to put this on before class so they "feel" how there neck should feel in proper position."

I feel the spine in an alignment with the brace that I have not been getting without it since the injury.

 When I put it on I can pinpoint exactly what vertebrae in the back are affected.- C3, C4 on the left side; C 5 on the right is where I feel the tenderness.  I feel pain there in the back as the front of the cervical spine is elongated because I am decompressing that which is compressed. I am going against what has become normal for the body in its protective mode. My shoulders automatically fall down away from my ears with the brace on. I realize how much accessory muscles were quickly led into bad habits  because of the injury.  That is why I feel pain in proper position. I was probably collapsing in the front neck to some degree prior to the injury. Osteporosis is manifesting in my neck and probably has been before this sneeze. A few years ago, before I began actively teaching, I had a very pronounced tech-neck  with chin constantly jutted forward and head in a chronic slight hyperxtension as a rsult.  Now I have just the opposite. I have a hyperflexion forward. Hmm!

So crazy lady, why are you going on about your neck?

This is an example of how we "contract and stretch to reach for things in this human experience" beyond the way we are intended to....leading to habits that put our lives in improper alignment, leading, therefore, to overprotection, tension, pain and suffering. We lean forward(flex) into the pleasant things we "desire or prefer" and fall back away from (hyperextend) the unpleasant things in this life.  When we start to realign...against the old habits that have become so normal to us...to wake up and straighten up into a "neutral" alignment with Life ...we may experience discomfort. We have to retrain the mind and the human to break the old habits that have become "normal" so we can stand tall in this life the way we are meant to. Yoga can be our brace.

Hmm!

How I ramble, eh?

All is well. 

Guide Practice: You Are Love

 

Learning From The Ballet

 

You are born. You are going to die. In between there is something that's yours...it is called your life. 

Michael A. Singer

I, too often, have the experience of being pulled down into the objects of consciousness that are unfolding in front of 'me'. 

The strength of the objects you are conscious of is enough to pull you down into it.

There is and has been so many "unpleasant" things showing up in this life I have been given. I get so focused on these unpleasant things that appear to be doing such a somber interactive dance in front of me. I find myself up there on stage with them much too often...swaying and moving...clinging and pushing away as I awkwardly dance to the depressing music being played around me. I tense up. I stumble. I fall. I get all tangled up in the dance. 

I forget that I do not have to be. I forget why I am here. I forget who I am. I suffer. 

Then, as if waking up from an altered state, I "realize" I am on stage, all tangled up, and I ask, "How the heck did I get here...again?"  

I disentangle myself from the all the limbs of life circumstance holding me down, brush myself off, apologize to who ever is watching, and with red face make my way back down to my seat in the audience. 

 "This is where I am supposed to be", I timidly ask the choreographer...."not up there. Right?" 

And with a nod of Life's head and the reassuring, "Yes...observe. Don't jump in. Not yet...not until you are ready and more coordinated in your movements. Just watch and learn from this amazing performance.", I begin watching the dance I was once all tangled up in. 

I like it back here in this seat of observer. The energy vibration is higher, than it is up there. It is not so depressing. I am more sure of the Self back here, than I am of the self up there. Things are clearer from the distance than they are from my place on stage...even if I don't understand the choreographer's intentions...at all. 

I see how the extremities that seemed to be knocking me down and tangling me up when I was up there, are actually flowing in some graceful sequence. The more relaxed the dancer, I see, the more fluid the movement. 

There is no basis for tension.  It doesn't help anything.

This dancer I was trying to be, I realize, was clumsy in its tension and resistance. It was interfering, rather than enhancing the dance. Without "me" and my resistance in the way, the dance is indeed a beautiful thing to witness. 

Every experience you have in your life is your teacher. 

I am here to learn and to grow so I can back up on the stage and enjoy being a part of the dance.

All that I am watching is just Life being Life...it is just circumstance flowing in and flowing out. It's patterns and directions have little to nothing to do with "me". My role as a dancer is not to control the choreography but to go with the flow. 

I do not have to be an awkrward dancer when I get back up there. I just have to relax, knowing I was born a graceful ballerina who has the potential to enjoy this amazing dance I get to dance in.  

The time between my birth and my death is a holy time...I am not missing one milisecond of it.

All is well!

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/Sounds True ( August 2025) The Meaning of Life is Life Itself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCmZThyvTIM&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=3

Loving for the Sake of Self

 None, O beloved, loves the husband for the husband's sake, but for the Self that is in the husband; none, O beloved, ever loved the wife for the wife's sake, but for the Self that is in the wife. None ever loves anything else except for the Self.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

When we contemplate the relationships we are involved in during this human drama we need to ask, "Who am I seeing and relating to?" Am I connecting to the 'self' of this being or the Self? Am I bonding with the ego or that internal/eternal essence in the person I am married to, going with, birthed, befriended, or work with? 

Most of us are attracted to the ego and body of the other. We tend to see that alone as the person we are relating to. We do not see the Self, though the Self is always gently calling to be seen.  It is the reason why we relate and connect with others in the first place. 

What is it that attracts man to man, man to woman, woman to man, and animals to animals, drawing the whole universe, as it were towards the centre?

Vivekananda

Love is that force. It is what holds everything together. Yet, we get all caught up in this little petty form of love which is really just attraction and attachment, don't we?  Instead of asking , "Am I seeing and responding to the other person's Self?", our relationships tend to operate on these questions: 

"How does the other person's ego feed and protect "me"?" 

"Are they making this life illusion I have of self comfortable or are they challenging me to the point of 'disturbance'? "

Are they allowing me to keep running from what I stuffed or stored inside or are they triggering it? 

As long as they allow us to perpetuate this illusion of 'self' we may deem the relationship as healthy and satisfactory. We open up. 

We fail to see that this force that pulls us is not on the surface. It is much deeper. What are we opening up to, albeit superficially, when we have satisfying relationships? What is this force? 

It is what is called love. Its manifestation is from the lowest atom to the highest being: omnipotent, all-pervading, is this love. What manifets itself as attraction in the sentient and the insentient, in the particular and the universal, is the love of God. It is the one motive power that is in the universe...

Unattached, yet shining in everything, is love, the motive power of the universe, without which the universe would fall to pieces in a mment, and this love is God.

What we are opening up to is the Self, not the self. We are loving the Self in us by recognizing the Self in another. We see that Self is love. We are love. They are love. All is love.

All is well.

Vivekananda (n.d.) 2.4 Bhakti or Devotion. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekanada. Kindle Edition.

Lightness of Being

  The heavier the burden the closer our lives come to earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then should we choose? Weight or lightness?

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Numbers are down again on the stats page and I feel relief.  Feel like what I might be getting now are legitimate readers. Who knows? But I do feel "lighter" because of it.

Anyway, the numbers are not the only thing that is down lol...the swelling in my mouth seems to be going down. It is much less sensitive to touch. So grateful!!! 

I woke up and for some strange reason I felt lighter...physically lighter, emotionally lighter. My movements seemed "free and insignificant"...not weighed down.  It was weird.  Nothing in the external world has changed significantly enough for me to notice...yet, I seemed to be free of burden. I am not sure of the cause for this "felt experience of lightness"...but it was/is nice to be absorbed by lightness. 

This lightness might have  a "physical" cause to it, too? You know how you feel with a fever? That lightheadedness and spaciness? I feel like that and have felt like this off and on since I first got the infection in April. That is why I sometimes thought I had a fever. It is far from "unpleasant". Actually, kind of "nice"... hmm!

One minute I feel burdened and weighed down by the world...and the next I feel like a helium balloon...untethered, half real, and with nothing "significant" to cling too. 

Isn't the felt experience of Life strange to witness? 

All is well

Pearls of Wisdom Formed By Irritating Sand

 

From a grain of sand in the pearl comes.

Confucius

From "All About Me"....

Another irritating grain of sand has been tearing up my insides. I am hoping it is making a pearl in the form of a cleared-up infection and not the beginning of a head-to-toe rash. I feel very ill on this antibiotic and the gums are sore and swollen still. They are worse, actually. Sigh! I also feel like I am getting caffeine pumped nonstop through my veins ...wired (and not in a pleasant way)!! This body, I can tell from this point, is too sensitive to this antibiotic. It does not want this medication in it...like it is knowingly but unwillingly ingesting a toxic substance (which it is). Is it "hypersensitive" to Flagyl like it is to some others?  I suspect it might be. I will soon find out. A rash will prove the point. 

And though I gratefully have much more ROM in my neck and am doing more...it is still irritating and annoying...I just cannot get comfortable. I have been lifting my grandchildren too which is not the wisest thing to do with this neck the way it is...(How can one say "no" to a child asking to be picked up?) I also have not been doing my hatha yoga practice, so I am stiffening up around the injury, making matters worse. 

I am just so uncomfortable in this skin right now.

Can you hear a thousand tiny little violins being played all over the world? lol

A Grain of Sand

So, I woke up irritated at 3. I was tossing and turning from one position to another because of the neck. At one point I heard myself saying, "Man! I am wired!" I really felt like I guzzled three large double doubles from Timmy's before going to bed. (Translation: very large coffees with two sugar and two creams, from Canada's coffee place-Tim Horton's). 

"WTF [front door]?"

It took me a minute to connect this insomnia to the medication, but some antibiotics (like ingested toxins) can cross the blood-brain barrier of the brain. They can be like grains of sand in that delicate tissue. The more "sensitive" one is, the more irritating. I am, I guess, like the princess in The Princess and the Pea lol. My body can pick up the most minor of discretions... sometimes. The grains of sand in this life unfolding in front of "me" appear to be everywhere. Even my brain is irritated. 

Anyway, long story short... and to answer that unspoken question.

Well crazy lady how did you handle the irritation? 

I meditated, of course.  I sat up. I sat with what was going on in the body; with what was going on in the mind (not so positive); and what was going on in the heart (the irritation itself- tried to strip it of its story so I could just experience that feeling of irritation). 

I found myself at one point asking, "How do I get past all this irritation to the deeper consciousness behind thinking mind...to the soul?"

A Pearl of Wisdom

Then there was suddenly a big "WTF[front door]? Whenever I sit, I attempt to get to higher consciousness, the soul...the Ananda body...the Atman etc. from out here. It is as if there is this "me" out here trying to get through some veil of disturbance to another place-in there.

 'Who' is trying to get there? Is there a 'who', that is not the soul but attempting to get to the soul? There can't be...I am that higher consciousness that I am trying to get to. I am the soul. That is who I am. So, it must be "I am" that is meditating and trying to get through all this irritation to "I am." There is no other entity called "me" trying to get to "I am". No entity called "me" exists.

Where is this "I am" trying to go and from where? I am both the destination and the point of departure. I am literally not going anywhere. I am here. There is no "out here" and "in there". There is just here, now."

WOW! 

...to "All About I am"

Thanks to that 'grainy' irritation I felt last night, I was gifted with a realization. I was taken from a delusional "me-irritant" focus to a focus on a potential pearl for humanity. I need to realize I am not a separate "little me" with all its so-called irritants and problems...seeking to get someplace else.  There is no "me". There is nowhere to go. I am that which I am seeking!

We...every single one of us... are Consciousness seeking Itself. We are the non moving "I am" in the center of a circumference called "Life". 

Now, I have intellectualized and narrated this idea many times on my journey but I never felt it like I did last night. I never quite had this realization of "non-locality" before. It kind of blew me away. 

Thanks to a little more irritation, a pearl (of wisdom) was formed. 

All is well. 

What Does a Yogi Want and Need?

 If you want to be a Yogi, you must be free, and place yourself in circumstances where you are alone and free from all anxiety.

Vivekananda

Whether I have a right to or not, I call myself a "Yogi"  or "Yogi-wanna-be" realizing that "yogi" is just a word or label.  I want what that word, that pointer, that concept points to. I do want to realize Self. I want to be free. So, does that mean I need to put myself in circumstances where I am alone? I am certainly not alone...let me tell ya! How I crave uninterrupted time alone. 

I am also supposed to be placing myself in circumstances where I am free from all anxiety? Well...I am certainly not there, am I? This neck pain...this tooth issue...are all related to a certain projection of internal tension.  My body is hanging on to and reflecting that tension. A sneeze wouldn't have given me this "whiplash" or "VCF" in my neck...(whatever it proves to be)...if I wasn't "tense". This tooth issue would not be either, if it wasn't for cracks in teeth related to "jaw clenching"...another sign of tension. 

I am a Yogi-wanna-be and I am fully aware that I am not in the best set of circumstances to achieve that. 

You suffer because you decided how you wanted everything to be and it is not that way. Singer

So, I am not living in the most perfect set of circumstances for "Yogi-hood". 

Am I living in the right set of circumstances for "ego-hood"? 

Ahh...no! Ego is not getting what it prefers either. It experiences little irritations all the time. The body is experiencing all these irritations in the form of pains, discomforts, "issues"...Ego is not comfortable dealing with all this.  Life circumstance is also not "pleasant" for the ego.  It is not easy. And the mind? Well we know that what goes in this Non -Stop -Thinking Personal Mind most humans are equipped with is not comfortable for the ego either. And I am doing what most humans do. I am seeking comfort.  I am grasping and clinging to whatever I can find. 

He who desires a comfortable and nice life and at the same time wants to realize Self is like the fool who, wanting to cross the river, caught hold of a crocodile, mistaking it for a log of wood. (Vivekachudamani, 84)

Sometimes, things will show up and this ego, that wants to be comfortable, will say, "Oh Wonderful! I am finally getting something that will make life more comfortable for me."  

For example, the other day D. traded his truck in for a Lexus (a 2018 with affordable payments.). It is a beautiful car....a car my ego would previously have dreamed of owning.  This car, unlike the truck, I knew, I could drive. When I sat in it for the first time, I felt this "hope" in me emerge. It was so luxurious, like brand new, and so "clean" compared to the truck.  "Maybe, this human I call "me" will have a bit of comfort, after all", I thought. "Maybe, this is a sign that the external circumstances for this human are getting easier?"

 No sooner than the thought emerged, I felt and heard the air in some proverbial balloon seeping out in one big hiss. I realized, first of all, that it was just a car....a car that would lose its appearance, cleanliness, and luxuriousness within a few weeks (or days) of carrying three dogs around in it.  Second of all, I realized it was D.'s car, not 'mine'. It would not provide this "me" the comfort and ease it was still hoping for.  The reality is, I...as a separate little human... still don't have a car...a quick independent means of getting from here to there. I am still in the same place I was prior to the purchase of this vehicle. Ego is not comfortable with that.

"I am" comfortable with that though...and after ego fizzled off with all that air in the balloon...I realized that the car was just like a crocodile tail I grabbed onto, mistaking it for a log that might make this human's journey through this life easier. My priorities got mixed up again. I remembered that what I really wand from this journey is to realize Self, not make a nice, comfortable life for ego. 

Is it ironic that this car arrived at a time when I physically couldn't drive? (I can't look over my shoulders)...Taking me a little quicker to this realization?

So, do I still need to change my present circumstances in order to be a Yogi? 

Don't get me wrong. I am fully aware that the car is neither here or there. It was just a little anecdote I used to make a point.  It doesn't matter if I drive a Lexus or my grandson's tricycle to work (neither will make me more or less a so called "yogi") . The way I am living now, however, does seem to do the opposite of promoting "yogi-hood". It does not make it easy to be "alone and free from anxiety". 

That is what I am pondering...my present set of circumstances nd whether they suit me. None of 'this' feels right to me anymore. Sometimes, I think my body is also reflecting the external tension these life circumstances provide. I feel that pull towards change again.

Change or not, I need, once again, to get my mind off myself and get back to Yoga!

What are you doing, making you the center of the universe? 

Get your mind off yourself...This is yoga. Yoga is a body of knowledge that is the deepest body of knowledge that has ever been collected in all humanity, in all of time...It is about from here to there [going from being tangled up in your personal mind to complete and utter freedom.] Michael Singer

Hmm!

All is well.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True (August, 2025) Gratitude for the Miracle of Life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lHPst_cvpg&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

Vivekananda (n.d.) 2.3 Hints on Practical Spirituality. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Kindle

From a Grain of Sand to a Pearl

 A grain of sand gets washed into the shell of an oyster and irritates it. The irritation produces a secretion in the oyster, which covers the grain of sand and the beautiful pearl is the result. Similarily, external things furnish us with suggestions, over which we project our own ideals and make our objects.

A long wait in an emergency room can definitely be like a grain of sand. Yet, when we realize the opportunity for the creation of a pearl through this minor irritation...cool!

My nine and a half hour wait birthed a pearl.  There were definitely some positive outcomes from the experience: I lucked in again. I got the same kind and thorough triage nurse I had last time and I also got a very thorough doctor who took everything I said very seriously. I felt very seen and very heard.  He ordered a very thorough Xray...anterior and lateral view. There doesn't appear to be a compression fracture but because of the inflammation, I am going to wait on a radiologist's confirmation in case there is an itsy bitsy one in there (something is going on the vertebrae themselves). I trusted and trust his thoroughness so I didn't ask to see the Xray. Whatever it is, is not life threatening or serious! Relief! I got an injection of Torodol and some steroids to help reduce inflammation and within an hour I was moving my neck much more...probs a 40 % increase in ROM!! 

He also took the fact that I have another mouth infection very seriously...he orded blood work etc and assessed for the beginning of any signs of cardiomyopathy related to the  infection. Grateful! I am now on antibiotic round number six :( with a different component added. I worried that might not happen as my face swelling was way down and the abscess was no longer in the back behind the teeth. My gums were still very obviously swollen though. Anyway...the bit of irritation preceding and during the wait was worth it.

Not only for these body reasons...in fact despite these body reasons.  I am so impressed with this growth process.  I see how though there is obviously pain in this body ...pain doesn't "bother me" anymore.  I can deal with physical pain now like I could never before. This mouth infection, obvioulsy, is not "pleasant" and there is a lot of pressure and discomfort in my neck that I might even have to rank high at times on the pain scale (with certain movements) but it is not consuming me.  I did not go into the ER for pain management, nor did I go to the dentist necessarily to alleviate the pain of a tooth ache.  I knew the pain, as pain is intended to do, in both cases was pointing to something that needed to be dealt with.  I needed to get to the cause. I was focuing on the cause in a rational way not adding any mental reactivity to the pain experience. It is so cool to see how I handle pain now!!

The less the thought of the body, the better. For it is the body that drags us down. It is attachment, identification, which makes us miserable...

The experience also allowed me to practice Yoga in the purest of ways.  Sure, I had the opportunity to read Vivekananda's wisdom and to meditate. ( I took my mala off my wrist more than once and did breath awareness meditations). But I also had an opportunity to watch what was going on around me from the seat of the Objective Observer...to see and experience the suffering of the fellow humans around me (both the patients waiting and the exhausted and busy staff), to feel compassion and connection, to watch the reactivity I witnessed without judgement, to witness this human I call me occassionally slip into that reactivity and pull itself back, to be kind and selfless with "my turn" on more than one occassion, and to observe and "feel" the perfect beautiful imperfection of humanity. I felt so alive!!! 

That is the secret: To think that I am the spirit and not the body, and that the whole universe with all its relations, with all its good and all its evil, is but a series of paintings-scenes on canvases- of which I am a witness.

I feel so grateful right now.  I really do. Just grateful to be a human who gets to have these amazing experiences- the so-called "good" and so-called "evil". I am a being  who gets to explore this amazing art. Wow!

(Okay...it might not last lol.  I might fall back into being a reactive "me" when these steroids wear off lol... but for now I spirit...I am the Pearl of this human experience, not the body.)

All is well.

Vivekanada (n.d.)  2.3 Hints of Practical Spituality/2.4 Bhakti or Devotion. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Kindle Edition

Be the Centre of an Infinite Circle

Man is an infinite circle whose circumference is nowhere, but the centre is located in one spot; and God is an infinite circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose centre is everywhere. He works through all hands, sees through all eyes, walks on all feet, breathes through all bodies, lives in all life, speaks through every mouth, and thinks through every brain...

Man can become like God and acquire control over the whole universe if he multiplies infinitely his center of self-consciousness...

Vivekananda

How beautiful, eh? How jaw-dropping truthful and wise this statement is if we decide to put away our resistance and open up to what it is saying. I drank up all this wisdom during my ER wait yesterday.  It helped to fill the time. I hit the part of Vivekananda's works...after three years of  reading this very, very large "Complete Works" ... that interested me the most... just at the right time. Grateful to be able to use what reactive mind might want to call a "frustrating, boring, and possibly unnecessary wait," as a part of my practice. 

Michael Singer shares this same idea in the below linked podcast that I opened up to early this morning in my steroid active state (I get so wired on steroids lol...was awake since 430). (below paraphrased)

You are so big...God descended...but you fell from the universal state of consciousness down to "little me's" reflection in it.

Why don't we live like we are God-descended? 

The problem is we are focusing down on some encapsulation of consciousness we call "my mind, my body, my life"...instead of looking around us from the center of the circle, seeing we are everywhere. 

Singer also encourages us to keep reminding ourselves, "The problem is my mind." He is right we cannot deal with life if we are constantly dealing with this "little me'' drama inside us. 

So few humans deal with Life as it is, allowing, with peace, wisdom, and serenity, for it to be exactly as it is. We look around at all the reactive humans , who are also focusing on their "me-meness" because it was conditioned into them to be the normal thing to do. We watch as their "personal, disturbed minds" pull them in,  and like watching someone yawn, we do the same.  We get pulled into our own "personal, disturbed mind." 

I excitedly read along, highlighting these chapters like crazy, as Vivekanda spoke/taught about the reason why we tend to react. Most importantly, he stresses it doesn't have to be this way. (Of course, Singer did the same.)

Practical Psychology? Bringing the Samskaras Out of Hiding. 

Its [our consciousness'] past experiences have been replaced by the present, or have become subconscious. We are not aware of their presence in us; but there they are, unconsciously influencing our body and mind. Every movement that is now being made without the help of consciousness was previously conscious.

Practical psychlogy directs first of all its energies in controlling the unconscious, and we know that we can do it. Why?

Because we know the cause of the unconscious is the conscious: the unconconscious thoughts are the submerged millions of old conscious thoughts, old conscious actions become petrified- we do not look at them, do not know them, have forgotten them, ...We may have many things stored in us as in a pocket. We have forgotten them, do not even think of them, and there are many of them, rotting, becoming positively dangerous; they come forth, the unconscious causes which kill humanity. True psychology would, therefore try to bring them under control of the conscious.

Basically saying, we need to bring them into conscious awareness again so we can deal with them (control them)...by dealing with them we set them free...and therefore set ourselves up for a higher learning, a higher experience that will set us free! Do you get that?

From Below to Above

This is the first part of the study, the control of the unconscious. The next is to go beyond the conscious. Just as unconscious work is beneath consciousness, so there is another work which is above consciousness. When this superconscious state is reached, man becomes free and divine; death becomes immortality, weakness becomes infinite power, and iron bondage becomes liberty. Tht is the goal, the infinite realm of the superconscious...

That is the ultimate goal attained in samadhi...true Self-realization. We may not reach it in this lifetime...that's okay. We will have another opportunity to do so in the next. That is our aim though, right? Whether we know it or not? We want to have this experience of freedom, of true knowing, and a true peace that surpasses all understanding?  But we do need to start with practical psychology first,  bringing the unconscious to the conscious. 

Otherwise we are experiencing a "pretend" life which perpetuates suffering and not the Life we are here for - one that perpetuates joy and love.

As the sanskrit saying goes, "It is a headache without the head." 

Remember this, whether we have reached that state of realization or not:

This is the first fact of consciousness-I am. Who can imagine a state of things which never existed? It is the most self-evident of all truth.

And when Life outside is not the way ego wants it to be...do your very best to remember all this wisdom and instead of reacting, learn to say:

Can I bring peace into this moment no matter how much reactivity I am witnessing around me...I do not have to react..."How can I help...how can I serve this moment...?" Michael Singer, somewhat paraphrased.

All is well. 

Michael Singer (August 14, 2025) From Preference to Presence: The Journey Beyond the Mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piRP5DkXJ3I&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=2&t=2127s

Sri Swami Vivekanada (n.d.) 2.3 Hints on Practical Spirituality. Complete Works of Vivekananda. Kindle Edition