Finding Meaning in Suffering Beyond the Gymnastics of the Mind

 

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

Unknown

I want to know "Everything" in the True knowledge way, that goes beyond conceptualization and intellectualization. I do!

 I am fully aware that is a very big and life (s) long process to get to that level of truth. In the meantime, I have a very active intellectual mind and I am pretty addicted to words and concepts. I use it and them  to "explain" "my" verson of  reality. So, I also like to be able to understand on an intellectual level and to be able to explain with words why life is so challenging for this human I call "me". 

I want to dwell on the question of "Why me?" from  a more objective and zoomed out view.

From this wide lens perspective, I am fully aware this human is one tiny weeny  speck in a sea of 8.5 billion specks, floating around on a little salty, watery rock in a small universe, in  a massive galaxy which just happens to be one of trillions.  I understand all that from the zoomed out view. 

I have, however, been given one small sliver of Life to experience intimately. That requires a more zoome din focus. I am  seeing this sliver of Life as it unfolds in front of me through the eyes on this head and I am experiencing it all through this one insignificant, aging, and sometimes ailing body. Though I now can have a zoomed out perspective, I still have an ego and personality conditioned by what this human was given (or chose) to experience. The focus gets pulled in and down. What I am perceiving in front of "me" in the slice of living I am here to experience...is often so "challenging" and I want to know why? I ask the question, "Why me?"

This question is not a whiney..."Oh Woe As Me " question. It is a curious one asked by the same mind that asks why the body functions the way it does. Though I ask why "me"...I am not focusing on the me as "me" but as that which so many identify with at the exclusion of realizing who we truly are. Not too many earthlings identify themsleves as being souls or consciousness having a human experience, do they? Do you? Though I truly see myself as awareness getting to know Itself...I still forget and find myself flat down in the muck of human drama much, much too often.

Don't get me wrong ...I perceive and experience great beauty around me and I appreciate that beauty. I am completely astounded by the natural world. I am surrounded by amazing people and so much love.  I appreciate that love. I have my basic needs met for the most part. I am grateful for that. I have grandchildren whom I adore. I love observing and participating in their yet -to- be -conformed-conditioned- and- confined -by -dogma perspective of the world. So,so thankful for that. I partake in little things I enjoy like knitting, photography, studying, whatever, yoga, walking and I get to write!! I am so grateful for these things. 

 I was standing in the shower last evening reviewing glimpses of the precious life  I experienced over the last few  days: Running around with my grandkids, nestled in the vibrant orange and gold hues of Autumn foliage and sunshine, laying on the grass after my yoga practice looking up at the sky with my pets around me, reaching and pulling an apple from a tree that produces such beautiful abundant fruit and being able to pass this fruit onto others, using my hands to move needles around beautiful coloured yarns to create something for someone else, just sipping my tea, reading books about quantum physics ( my go to these days), holding a book I wrote -for God only knows why- in my hand...visiting with my sister on her deck...laughing the few times I laughed.  It was all so clear and beautiful in my my mind. I felt great appreciation for Life. I  know that It  is an amazing adventure.  I appreciate. I appreciate. I appreciate!

...but...

I also often find what I am given to look at in this tiny slice very, very challenging. I am down, just as much as I am up. This experience of Life has been very challenging ever since this human was small...and because I, as she, has endured so much conditioning, made sense of it with so many Self-negating beliefs, built up so many layers of defenses in order to "get by"...Life is now seen through this dark and heavy veil.  On top of that...there really are a lot of challenges!That's not made up or exaggerated.  It is hard to focus on the sunshine and laughter when there is so much suffering calling me from the inside, and calling me from the outside to do something about it. So many challengess are  thrown in front of the blurry, dark filtered  lens in which I snapshot the world. It is really heavy. 

I look over away from my lens view to others and I see some suffering for sure...yes...but this much? No. I mean...for sure...there are many suffering so much more than me outside my visual field, I know that ...but in this slice I am given to perceive...there are not many.   I am not denying them the right to their experiences...not at all. I truly, truly want others to experience joy of Life.  I do!  I just want to be able to experience a bit more myself, as well. I don't know why it is so hard fo this me to do that. Why has this human been given so many challenges? Why does she keep getting challenges back to back ? Why are there so few breaks of relief and abundance to compensate? I figure...if I knew why...then I would be okay with it all. That's why I am trying to figure out this suffering thing.  I am okay with Life not being easy as long as I know why it isn't easy for this human...that this challenge serves a purpose.

That is why I like learning about this "soul contract" stuff and this "we evolve through challenge" mentally etc. If I begin to see that as my Truth, I happily own and accept my challenges then.

But what if I am manifesting my own reality through  my consciousness veils? Is my unhealed brokenness being reflected onto the world I live in through the circumstances I encounter? Why do I feel so bound by this suffering mind, if it is the cause for my suffering experience and the suffering world I see?

If you think you are free, free you are this moment, and if you think you are bound, bound you will be. Vivekananda

Are my negative, samskara induced thoughts creating my world? That would be okay if it was just me suffering but my experience of suffering is built around having to watch others suffer, being expected to fix it, and not being able to. Sigh! I have a hard time handling the guilt, even remotely believing that is true.

Sigh! It is a conundrum lol

That brings me to yoga and purification.  I want all this stuff out of me that is clouding my vision and keeping me bound in a physical world of suffering.  I don't need the circumstances to change for this human I call "me" (though it would be nice if they did ...a bit...anyway...for the better lol) . I just need the samskaras gone. Part of the reason, I feel so heavy and challenged now is because these samskaras (at least the emotional energy if not the memories they attached themselves to) are coming up. I asked that of the Universe, the world, this Self I know I am beyond the me- this Objective Observer of the Zoomed out focus- to help me to rattle and shake up my samskaras so they come up and out. My challenging Life circumstances may actually  be a kind answer in response to my prayers. Do you think?

Anyway, right now I feel heavy and pulled down...with these beautiful insights coming in and out of my consciousness about how amazing this world is, how amazing Life is. 

I read this today as I was waiting for my daughter:

...the human soul, whatever it be, or whatever its relation to God, is essentially pure and perfect, whether expressed in the language of mythology, allegory, or philosophy. Its real nature is blessedness and power, not weakness and misery. Somehow or other the misery comes. The crude systems may call it a personified evil, a devil, or an Ahriman, to explain how this misery came. Other systems may try to make a God and a devil in one, who makes some people miserable and others happy, without any reason whatever. Others again, more thoughtful, bring in the theory of Maya and so forth. But one fact stands out clearly, and it is with this that we have to deal. After all, these philosophical ideas and systems are but gymanastics of the mind, intellectual exercises. 

The one great idea that to me seems to be clear, and comes out through the masses of superstition every country and in every religion, is the one luminous idea that man is divine, that divinity is our nature.

In other words if we continue to see our selves as puny bodies and personalities randomly at the mercy of life circumstance...bound by this limited fate the mind creates...we will suffer.  If we chose instead, though, to go beyond mind to see the divinity within, suffering will end. 

Anyway, how I rambled. Taking my daughter to an appointment shortly ...Got to go!

All is well

Beyond Conforming and Confining Everything

 God conformed to form is deformed...God defined is confined...

Ram Dass

I thought of those words today as I was writing in my devotional.  Actually, the words just popped up on the screen in a different font and everything.  Yep! They did.  I mean there could be some technical glitch as the physical world explanation for this. I did type those exact words in a blog entry yesterday....and maybe they were trapped in the cut and paste function that I somehow accidently hit while I was typing. Regardless, I don't care...at all.  I looked up from my ramble...there the words were...set a part from all others...meant to be seen....at least by these eyes on this human's face. There was no reactivity from me when they popped up...just an "Okay, that's interesting....now,  what am I supposed to do with this?"  I finished my entry and here I am...telling you what happened.

God, of course, is a word and what that word points to is so much grander than the word itself...but too many of us conform and confine that Divine Essence into a word, into an idea, a small human image, into a dogma or belief system...diminishing the reality  of what God is. I think of God as the Source of Everything. God, therefore, is the Source of consciousness...that awareness that is breathed through everything. That "everything" is the foundation for much thought, contemplation, and research. 

I am so convinced that consciousness is not confined to a physical brain...that who we truly are is not body, not personality, not the dramas we are going through but so much more.  I am so convinced and I keep looking for a complete and absolute knowing of that truth. I am looking to the "science of it" and at the same time I am exploring it through things termed the "metaphysical". All the word metaphysical means, btw, is..."after" physics...or going beyond the physical.  

Huh? 

Metaphysics is about going beyond physical science, beyond the explanation of matter in physics. It does not mean going outside the realms of science or scientific investigation. 

Ervin Laszlo in his ground breaking book, "Science and the Akashic field" explores this idea that consciousness is not entrapped, conformed or confined to physicality. Using both groundbreaking scientific 'Theories of Everything', as well as what was discovered by ancient rishis, he tries to connect the findings of science with ancient wisdom; the physical with the metaphysical in our understanding of "everything".

In Chapter Three, he quotes Einstein (who he referrs to a lot in his book) :

A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences his thoughts and feelings as something seperate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The delusion is a sort of prison for us, restricting us to our personal decisions and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. page 1

So, that above quote is timely and I, as consciousness in this human form, received it from some place where all 'in-formation' comes from for a reason that benefits all...even if I do not understand any of it. I like to think that anyway.

All is well

Ervin Laszlo (2007) Science and the Akashic Field. Inner Traditions: Rochester Vermont. 

Coming and Going with Ram Dass

 The coming and going is where you are

Hyakunin Isshu

I love how Ram Dass explains the process of bothe being in space and time and not being in space and time

acknowledges a space of my being where I am not in time...but also in time...living in time but not in time...living in space and not in space

Then when we face challenge with this in mind

What grace....cuz you feel the process of working with the pain...the challenge has become the curriculum...

He also spoke of the need for

cultivating that space of awareness where I just see where things are....

...For seeing that this idea of God is not what God is 

God in form...is a God deformed...God defined is a Gof confined...

to come to God...fold the future into the present the same way we fold the past into the present...by coming up as close to my fear as possible with compassion and respect...(somewhat paraphrased) 

For me God is truth...Gandhi

I can never know truth, I coud just be truth.

So much hard earned wisdom to learn from. 

All is well!

Baba Ram Dass (September, 2025) Mystery's Edge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaF7Hafqbjw

Getting Pulled Down?

You are literally God consciousness staring down at your mind...Keep your head where it belongs...become established in the Seat of Self and you will never get pulled down again.

Michael A. Singer

I am being pulled down...or at least part of me is.  The other part, has found the Seat of Self, and is just watching quietly in the background, squirming around, trying to get comfy. I try to stay back there as the "Objective Observer" and I am getting pretty good at staying longer, but  I am not yet "established".  I too often feel pulled "down"...energetically, thought wise, feeling wise, body wise...into the lower energies, into the lower chakra stuff. 

This human is quite often lately  having an experience of  heaviness, low energy, apathy even? I...as this "me"  don't feel very "good" or "happy". I make judgements like, "I don't like this! This is awful! I want out!" as I observe this experience. I don't resist it, though...I don't run from it...I don't try to make it better. I accept it. I still don't like it, lol and I am fully aware of that. I do want out. I am, however, no longer relying on old ego defense mechanisms of distraction, numbing, supressing, avoiding, grasping, running after, pretending etc to get me out. I know "out is through". Sigh! So, I am facing this bare-naked feeling I was running away from all my life,  that I am now so aware of because it is no longer hidden away.  And to be honest, "It really sucks!" lol.  It is not pleasant! It is so heavy and draining.

But I don't resist it.  I observe it, the best I can, from back here in the Seat of Self. I take out the popcorn and turn up the volume so I can watch it all go down knowing, most of the time, that I am not that which I am watching. I see and know that I am not that which I am watching down there....until

As Michael Corleone in the Godfather says. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." It pulls me back down.

I feel this "felt experience" of being pulled down in the center of my gut...like a great big knot...like there is a magnet there drawing my thoughts, feelings , and outward experience of life in this physical world down to it ( my outer experiences seem to be reflections of my inner...you know, the old Murphy's law thing.). The solar plexus is where everything seems to be happening. I am so aware of it. I feel it physically : so many little physiological issues there...I feel the tension creeping up from there into my muscles and into my jaw that seems to be permanently clenched. It moves down into my legs and feet. My feet are clenched as well. 

I started writing about this experience in my gut while I was listening to the below podcast. It's so funny... near the end of the podcast Singer speaks to the fact that most people are operating from the third chakra! Go figure... another shout out from the universe to remind this "me" that there is some intelligence so much bigger than my little mind operating here. 

I know that I am stuck in third chakra issues. That is where the knot of  samskara is being tossed around by the Shakti underneath it. I am dealing with survival issues, money issues, and the painful dying of an old ego (and it is a painful process). My buried shame and guilt create the emotional energy that keeps that knot together. I feel it so much, I like to think, because Shakti is below it trying to push it up and out of the way.  Shakti is moving the samskara around like a "clot buster".  Then, like tiny clots dislodged from an artey's lumen...pieces of this samskara are moving around causing discomfort.  

Because I am actively "cleansing" and seeking the death of this protesting ego...shakti is able to get around, in trickles at least, so it can move up into the heart chakra- I do have intense experiences of love, forgiveness, compassion, appreciation for the beauty around me.  It moves up in tiny trickles to the throat chakra where I experience these downloads of wisdom and truth that I share effortlessly, it seems. It even moves up ...in tinier trickles, maybe...to the third eye where I have this clarity to the point of precognition etc... and sometimes it moves up to the Thousand-Petalled Lotus where I am in touch with something far greater than me. 

The Shakti is moving.  I really want to believe that I am cleansing but it is such a slow and somewhat painful process, I get lost in it.

There is still too much of a magnetic pull to this samskara knot in the center of my gut and everything it clings to. This amazing consciousness that I am, this Chit Shakti, this "Man minus mind equals God"  keeps getting pulled down to it. It gets lost in the thoughts and feelings generated there...pulled right in and tangled up in that knot. 

I know at some level that goes beyond knowledge...that that is not me...that I am the one back here watching...but the drama is so convincing at times I forget. 

I get lost in personal mind again and again. My thinking during all this is so bizarre. Without all my old beliefs, habitual thought patterns, mind tendencies...nothing really makes sense. Much to my loved ones dismay, I am no longer excited or attached to social rituals and social expectations. So, I don't empathize enough with their attachments. I see beyond them. I do not hope or dream like I used to.  I just say, "I don't know what I want!"  I do not try to gain reward for my doing, anymore. I still do but I am nolonger attached to outcome. I don't want to be around people like I used to.  I still love people but not in the attached way of "special relationships". I just want peace!

I just want to cleanse. I just want to be free of all these knots that are holding me back. I want this Chit Shakti to flow freely through me, just as this Life  is meant to flow freely through this himan I call "me". I want to get out of the way. I want to get beyond personal mind.

For one who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, the mind will remain the greatest enemy.

The Gita Chapter 6, Verse 6

Conquering the mind simply means learning not to believe everything it says. When we observe the mind from the Seat of Self...we see clearly that we are not the mind.  It is just a tool we get to use. Who we are is beyond mind.

Sigh! 

All is well.

Beyond Science and Western Thinking

 I must know the heart of this life, its very essence, what it is, not only how it works and what are its manifestations. I want the Why of everything. I leave the how to children. 

Vivekananda

I am not like other people.  I never was, I suppose. Though I have a love of science I want more than the answers it can provide.  I want more than the knowing of "what" and "how".  I want to know "why". Hmm! That takes me  beyond scientific thought, beyond my western conditioning, to the ancient wisdom of the East.  I know nothing...I may never know anything...but I want to understand the "why" behind existence.

Hmm!

All is well. 

Sure to Join the Ocean of Life

 The whole of mankind will become Jivanmuktas-free whilst living. We are all struggling towards that one and through our jealousies and hatreds, through our love and cooperation. 

A tremendous stream is flowing towards the ocean carrying us all along with it; and though like straws and scraps of paper we may at times float aimlesly about, in the long run we are sure to join the Ocean of Life and Bliss.

Vivekananda (2.5.9 Chapter Nine, Complete Works)

He talks about floating aimlessly. Yes, many of us float aimlessly.  I also see that many of us, like me, when we decide to swim against the current or try to cling to everything from this world as we swim along... do not float...we splash and splatter and we get pulled down. 

Michael A. Singer speaks to this pulling down in the below linked podcast.  I often feel pulled down...I take this amazing awareness...consciousness and I bring this great universal energy and focus it down on my experience in the water...not even my experience in the water..."my idea" of my experience on this water grasping and clinging, trying to save other people from drowning and going down with them. 

Regardless of how I struggle or get distracted in the petty concerns of "me"...I am still being carried towards the Ocean...I am becoming a Jivanmuktas with or without my awareness, my cooperation, my attention focused on this purpose.

Life, however, would feel so much better...be much more enjoyable if we simply layed back and observed, experienced fully, and let go of all the stuff that passes by as we lay here....being taken to the bliss of Who I Am. 

All is well

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( October, 2025) Escaping the Call of the Ego: A Call to Liberation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ3g2hb26Dg&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=2

Completing Its Task

 Let your higher Self complete Its task.

Gary Zuhav

Hmm! Bernado Katsrup tells us in the below clip that most of us are not permitting ourselves to live Life fully. We are as he quotes:

Living our  lives to culturally bound recipes.

He speaks of the Daimon...our true nature and states if we want to live fully, we need to do the Daimon's bidding. We need to let nature and Life do their work through us.

As Zukav says above we need to let the higher Self complete Its task. What does he mean by that?

I don't know about you but I find it comforting to think that I came here with a basic idea of what challenges I would face in this life time...that maybe I actually chose them for the purpose of the Soul's growth. I like to think that everything is happening as it is meant to and that my job is to stay open to the flow of Life. When things get tough I try to remind myself that Life knows what it is doing...It is using this Self in human form for some great purpose I don't have to understand but that will allow this soul to experience, learn, and grow. 

I don't want to keep blindly going with the cultural flow...like a tiny fish in a school of fish.  I want to do what Life expects me to do.  I want to fulfill my pre-birth contract, if that is such a thing, even if that means being ostracized. 

There are times when the challenges for this human are so heavy I just want to give up.  I remind myself at these times why I am here: to serve some purpose I do not need to understand.  It isn't about this little psyche I call "me. " So what if it finds it a little tough! "Suck it Up, Buttercup!" This is about the Self. I renew my determination to let the Higher Self complete Its task. I get on with the business of living,

All is well.

Bernardo Katsrup (August 29, 2025) Permission to Live Your Life to Full. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGfqd4YFlWw&t=268s

Gary Zukav (198/2014) The Seat of the Soul. New York: Simon and Schuster

Hmm! 

The "Word"

 The external aspect of the thought of God is the Word, and as God thought and willed before He created, creation came out of the Word.

Vivekananda

Interested in exploring the Infinite field of energy behind everything- the primordial field. In ancient Indian tradition there is something called the Akashic Records, a place where all eternal knowledge is stored. Looking into the brilliant mind and works of Ervin Laszlo.

The "Word" is often used to explain this field.

Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. 

Matthew 4:4 NIV

All is well

Work Your Way Through

 This life is a hard fact; work your way through it boldly, though it may be adamantine; no matter, the soul is stronger....It lays no responsibility on little gods; for you are the makers of your own fortunes. You make yourselves suffer, you make good and evil, and it is you who puts your hands before your eyes. Take your hands away and see the light; you are effulgent, you are perfect already, from the very beginning....

How are we to see it? This mind, so deluded, so weak, so easily led, even this mind can be strong and may catch a glimpse of that knowledge, that Oneness, which saves us from dying again and again.

As rain falling upon a mountain flows in various streams down the sides of the mountain, so all the energies which you see here are from that one Unit. It has become manifold falling upon Maya. Do not run after the manifold; go towards the One.

Vivekananda 

Hmm! This helps a bit in understanding why we need these physical lives that can be so crazy at times, so challenging. It is all a part of our spiritual growth.  We will see and understand Truth so much better by seeing "through" this drama to what is real.

But as man sees his own face in a mirror, perfect, distinct, and clear, so is the Truth shining in the soul of man. The highest heaven, therefore, is in our own souls; the greatest temple of worship is the human soul, greater than all heavens, says the Vedanta; for in no heaven anywhere, can we understand the reality as distinctly and clearly as in this life, in our own soul. 

All is well.

Vivekananda (n.d.) 2.5.9 Chapter 9: Unity in Diversity (London, 1896) Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Kindle Edition

Susceptible Inner Nerves

 Take the lowest man; he lives in the forest. His sense of enjoyment is very small, and so also is his power to suffer. If he does not get plenty of food, he is miserable; but give him plenty of food and freedom to rove and hunt, and he is perfectly happy. His happiness consists only in the senses, and so does his misery. But if that man increases his knowledge, his happiness will increase, the intellect will open to him, and his sense enjoyment will evolve into intellectual enjoyment. He will feel pleasure in reading a beautiful poem, and a mathematical problem will be of absorbing interest to him.[Note: the poem and not the mathematical problem applies to this human I call "me":) ] But, with these, the inner nerves will become more susceptible to miseries of mental pain, of which the savage does not think. 

Vivekananda (2.5.9 Chapter 9: Unity on Diversity; Complete Works; Kindle) 

Again, I am trying to understand this sense of "suffering" the actor in this heavy drama is experiencing and why.  Why do I get so lost in character and have such a difficult time pulling my attention off the drama? Haven't I learned through my intellectual and spiritual pursuits that I am only playing a part here?  That that character isn't who I am? That the physical scenery around me is just a bunch of props that can be taken down just as quickly as they were put up...that this staged physical world is not the "real" one...that it is just illusion or "maya"? ? Why do we humans see it as real, even though we know at some level that it isn't? Why does maya have such a pull on us humans to the point this energy that is meant to be so high gets pulled down so low? 

I look at the quote above. I think...Maya must have a purpose. We are not yet at the point of evolution, maybe, that we can handle the whole truth about reality. We are still evolving. Evolution goes through stages.

Maya, a Part of the Evolutionary Process

Like it is in the "savage"(not a word I approve of) infinite consciousness, that knows everything already, has to be filtered and strained through the human brain so only a small amount of information ...that which is necessary for survival...can pour through. We as characters on the stage do not see all there is to this experience of Living. We are limited to the physical, that which can be picked up by the five senses. Physical survival of the human organism has to be priority...if consciousness is to experience living through this physical host. In the early stages of human evolution, then, consciousness just focused on our hunting and gathering tendencies...on the basics. At the same time though, there was a sense or a deeper knowing that could not be conceptualized, only experienced as it is in animals, of a connection to something bigger and deeper. There was this knowing ...through intuition...through instinct...etc of consciousness, without having any ideation, vocabulary, or conceptualization to explain it. It didn't have to be explained. It didn't have to be known.  It just was. There was a sense of happiness when basic needs were met, and a sense of suffering when they weren't. It was so simple. There was none of  this "mental" suffering that plagues humans today. 

With intellectualization and a growing thirst for knowing we have expanded beyond our survivalist nature. We are evolving into a search for comfort and building on how to maintain that comfort. We are leaps and bounds away from the "uncomfortable" forest. Yet, we are more miserable now than we were when survival was the only thing on our mind.

As we began to think more...we needed to create an "idea" of a world that would make sense to us. That is where "maya" came to be. Maya is a false idea of reality. Intellectualization has led to us having to create false realities to explain our inner turmoil. Consciousness was expanded from survival focus to Maya focus.  We created a character= "me". We then wrote some plays, set up some stages, and began acting some roles. That became real to us. It became the only reality.

We are much more technologically and intellectually advanced...but we are farther away, as a result, from that inner knowing primitive man had. We are much more miserable.  It takes a lot more than a full belly to make us or keep us happy. Why? We are lost in "ideas" and the need to "prove it" therefore we are lost in maya. This stage is not real people!  There is so much more to reality than what can be picked up with the five senses, of what can be created in the human mind. 

My own mind has gone from a survival tendency, to an intellectual or "let me explain why" tendency and that has left me feeling pretty miserable. I created and got lost in this play. I became the character of "me" and somehow, in a way I do not yet fully understand, I have created the scenes around me or enhanced the drama in my attempt to control it. It became so real to me. Now, I feel caught in a heavy drama I ...as an actor lost in character...really do not want to be in.

I am still evolving so I, like many other humans, can see that is what is happening.  I can see both what is happening on the stage and to some degree what is happening off stage. I know I want to spend more time off stage. I know it is more "real" back here than it is up there. I catch myself waking up on stage ...I step back into the audience....I do my best to stay in the audience but...because I am far from evolved...I find myself back on the stage thinking it is real again and again. For me it is when I am on stage that I am miserable, and when I am off stage that I find the peace I long for.  This is where I am in my evolution....caught between two seemingly real worlds. This is where I am meant to be. ...for now.

The Susceptible Inner Nerves of Intellectualization

Consciousness is experiencing a person waking up through this human I call "me". When I am on stage only so much of the collective unconscious flows through  a very narrow door in my mind and into my experience. Albeit, what flows through is much more than it was during my pre-intellectualizing days but not as much as it could be. The door is only partly open. I can go only so far beyond "surviving mode". Now this mind is also flooded with thinking, believing, ideation, opinion, judgement, preference, craving, aversion etc. This stuff is piled up on the inside of the door, jarring it, and preventing it from opening more. It is in the way of allowing that connection, that intuition, and non-conceptual knowing that the primitive man experienced from coming through. So, I feel separated from it...therefore alone and miserable.  It is also blocking "shakti" flow...so the natural joy and love that I am, cannot pour through. I don't feel that joy! I feel the absence of it!  So, I go looking outward onto the stage and its drama to make me feel better inside. Of course, it doesn't take long to realize that this physical world stuff is not going to fix what is happening inside. That equates to more suffering, more misery. That is where I am still spending most of my time.

When I am off stage, different ball game. I feel peace, joy, awareness of Truth.  I see so clearly the stage in front of me and I know it isn't real.  I see that I sometimes play a role up there but that is not who I am.  I see that is just the physical world and the physical body. There is so much more to reality than that, than what can be picked up with the five senses. The door in my mind opens more and more and more stuff pours through. I see inklings of truth pouring through; with it trickles of pure peace and joy! I know...Who I am cannot be confined to a form, to a place, to a certain level of knowing. I want to fall deeper back.  I want more than the inklings of Truth or the trickles of joy coming through this door. I want it all. I want to trace those trickles back to the Source. At the same time, unfortunately, I know I have a ways to go. Though I don't want to leave this place, I know I am going to be pulled back into the drama of the physical plane again and again. I suffer knowing I am going to repeatedly suffer the loss of this place and the drama of the other. The drama on stage seems even more heavy after connecting with the lightness of higher consciousness. Sigh! 

This is the stage of evolution I am, as this human, at. My goal is to stay off stage but before I can I have to accept, and embrace, honor and learn from the physical realm that I keep getting pulled back to. I keep getting pulled back into the drama for a reason.  I still have much, much learning to do. 

Sigh!

Wow! That helps me to see a bit more clearly why I suffer so.  Thanks to teh collective unconscious for allowing that insight to come through.

All is well in my world.

The Pull to Play a Part in an Intense Drama

 

There is no normal life, Wyatt. It's just life. Get on with it!

From the movie "Tombstone"

I would like to understand this chronic pull down of awareness to the going-ons of the problematic "me" that most of us are inflicted with.  Each of us as individuals are one of  8.5 billion humans, one of trillions of other beings, held down by the magical force of gravity to an absolutely amazing planet, as we spin around one star in a small solar system that exists in a galaxy of billions which exists in  universe of trillions of galaxies ...and still we focus on this question, "What about me?"  

I look outside and see the most amazing light being reflected off the most beautiful and bright hues of oranges, and reds, and yellows. (My part of the world is a piece of art in the Autumn, a blaze of warm colour that can take your breath away [if you are paying attention]) ) I have amazing trees surrounding me when I sit outside. And the breeze blowing through them is more soothing than any lullaby, more inspiring than any symphony. I have all kinds of wildlife in my yard that I relate to...crows that come to me when I call them, red squirrels, grey squirrels, blue jays, chickadees, occasionally fox, deer, and bear. My grandchildren run across the grass as if they are lions on the Serengeti plain...seeing and experiencing the vastness of it.  I feel so grateful for this world when I watch them, hear their giggles or get swallowed up in a Nana huddle.  I can sit here ...see that yard outside my window, while I type comprehensible symbols on a screen and someone somewhere can read what thoughts I have in my head and understand.  I have books I published sitting beside me...captured symbols on paper that I can share with other humans. At the same time, I have furry four-legged creatures all around me who understand and relate to me in a different way. Who remind me that I am a being of warmth, joy, and love. This experiencing of "living"...of being here is absolutely amazing!!!

Yet....

I watch this human I call "me" in this spot and see how quickly she can go from "awe" of this vast universe to being absorbed in "my" own puny little sense of suffering.  This awareness that is focusing on all the miraculous in that world out there, in an instant, gets pulled down into some drama this "me" doesn't want to be in. A costume is slapped on me and I get so, so lost in the character of "me" again. I become that character and see what is happening on stage as reality.  And the drama is so darn depressing! The plot graph seems to consist only of rising action and little to no resolution.  All dark and heavy scenes...so little light and comedic ones. I go from "awe" to "Oh no! Not now!" again and again and again.

Why, if reality is so darned amazing, do we as humans get pulled down into the drama of Maya so easily. What hold does it have on us?

I feel so heavy lately, so beat down and broken down by life circumstance.  I hear myself asking that very silly question even though it sounds so strange to these ears now that I am waking up. "What about "me"? What do I do about "me"? "My" life is difficult? How do I make it better for "me"?"

Sigh

Then the somewhat awakened mind will step in and say, "Whose "me"? What is the "my" of this thing you call "my life"? Why do you have to do anything about this "me"...about its life. You are not here to make it better for this "me". You are not a "problematic  me." You are an intergral but non-controlling part of this process of Life. Just experience it. Enjoy it!"

Enjoy it?  I want to. I see and know at some deep level what is there to enjoy but how do I do that when the drama on stage is so in your face, when I do not understand the pull it has over me. When I do manage to get off stage and into my practice,  I keep getting a hood thrown over my head and pulled back onto the stage. When the hood is pulled off,  I am the character again who wants nothing more than for the drama to lighten up.

This human drama on the physical plane is not reality. I am not the character. I am the Objective Observer. I know that! I know the answer is to stay off the stage and simply observe what is going on up there, experiencing it from a distance. I do.  Why do I keep getting lost in the character and pulled down to those low energy states? 

I do get to the point where I can step off stage again. I come around a bit for a while, but the drama is so compelling...so demanding of "my" attention. I can't seem to stay off for long. So, I find myself asking Life to fix the script a bit. I ask this on occasion even when I am off stage because I can see that I am on stage so much I feel I have to do something about it. There is so much suffering calling, up there, to "me" from others. I feel all these arms pulling me down. It is so hard to escape it for long. 

I absorb this suffering when I play my human role.  It feels like I am drowning and swallowing  water. My gut is literally sore because I am so full of this dirty water. That is when I ask the questions, "Why? Why "me"? Why have I been casted for this part I do not want to play in this human drama? Why is this play so full of the heavy stuff? Where is the comedic relief?  Where are the fools and jokers who can make this human laugh with silly nonsense?"

 I am tired of trying to soothe all the Shylock's and Lady MacBeth's around me. I try to bargain with the script writers and directors, "You know I love to laugh. Man...I would play this part so much better if the character got a few breaks from the heavy stuff and got to laugh a little more. "  

But...they don't seem to agree. They understand what they are looking for from this drama more than I do, I guess, because the drama just keeps building and building and building. 

I do not want to use my practice as a means of escaping the stage. The stage and all its drama must have some purpose I do not understand. I just do not want to drown in it.  I do not want this amazing consciousness to get so lost in the part that it sees itself as nothing more than a burnt out and depressed human being. I want to remember that I am the Objective Observer...watching and participating in the life of this human but not pulled down by it.

Sigh...

I will some day remember without doubt Who I Am...and I will enjoy simply playing the part of a human "me" without getting lost in that role. I will see and know that the scene outside my window, unlike the drama on stage, is a reality worthy of my undivided attention and I will be able to give it that without being pulled away by a "me" that serves no one.

All is well.

Neither Good or Bad

 Do not think that good and evil are two, are two separate essences, for they are one and the same thing, appearing in different degrees and in different guises and producing differences of feeling in the same mind. 

From the Vedanta

I am thinking of Bernardo Katsrup's "daimon" again.  I still do not know much about it at all as I have yet to read the book but I stumbled upon this from Vivekananda's "Complete Works" at the same time. I feel, for some reason, they go together. 

And of course this line from Hamlet that I often quote comes to mind.

Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Alan Watt's "irreducable rascality also comes to mind. I think that is the daimon. Hmm!

 All is well

The Goal to Flow

 You are not what happens to you, but what flows through you.

Unknown (I heard this a few days ago and rushed to write it down but forgot to scribble down the name of the author, assuming I would remember. [When will I remember that I won't remember these things?lol])

Most of us are stuck in some form of suffering because we are constantly "reacting" to life events seeing ourselves as fused parts in the drama. We see ourselves as heros, victims, villains based on 'what happens' to us. The above statement tells us, however, that we are not these events or these things that appear to "happen to us"...We are that which flows through us [or should flow through].  

What flows through? 

Uncontaminated Life...unclung to Life, Life that is not resisted and pushed away because we judge it as painful, bad, wrong, shouldn't be.  That is what flows through us. 

We need to, Learn to handle life events. 

Why? 

If you can't handle them you are going to store them....

Why is it wrong to store them?

If you store them, you "cling" to them and  you will create samskaras...blockages, a thick veil within that prevents the Life that you are from flowing through you.  If Life doesn't flow through...if you do not see how it can flow through...you will identify with the stuff that gets stored and stuck within. You will be bound. You will not see Who you truely Are. 

Who are we truly?

We are the Life meant to flow through. We are the Self when purified. 

The purified mind is no different,  than the Self...RamaKrishna

We are not the thoughts...your thoughts are not aware of themselves. We are that which can observe and be aware of those thoughts. We are awareness. We are Consciousness. 

We are That which always was and that which will always be...

Vivekananda pleads, 

Men of childish intellect, ignorant persons run after desires which are external, and enter the trap of far-reaching death, but the wise, understanding immortality, never seek for the Eternal in this life of finite things.

What is the end goal of  purification and Self-realization? 

To go back up with less than you came down with

Hmm! I am still a bit too attached to my 'stinking thinking'  and the drama, but I keep working on it. My goal is purification so Life can flow through...so Who I Am can flow through. What about you?

All is well.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( October6, 2025) You Are Not Your Mind: The Journey Back to Self. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muovC_4DVqA&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

Vivekananda: Complete Works

More Vedic Wisdom on Self and Soul

 

The Self -existent One projected the senses outwards and, therefore, a man looks outward, not within himself. A certain wise one, desiring immortality, with inverted senses, perceived the Self within.

The Vedas

Huh? Say what crazy lady?

I am assuming "the certain wise one" was one of those early rishis, possibly even patanjali. Anyway, what was discovered by this "certain wise one" supports teachings that apply to life today.

Most of humans have an outward focus...we use the energy of this amazing inner essence we do not understand because we do not take the time to explore It...to focus outwardly.

We then tend to very selectively bring the "external world" in to satisfy, numb, help us to soothe or distract from the mess we made inside (because we neglected it)  through our senses. We depend heavily on what our senses pick up  from the external world around us. We tend to look outward rather than inward for "peace". We have a "worldly" focus rather than a "spititual" one. We often call what is out there "reality" and what is in here "airy-fairy nonsense". 

We live by the mantra: I am not okay inside and this might make me feel okay inside.

In order to find that which we think we can find "out there" we need to turn our gaze inward...away from the impermanent and constantly changing phenomena of the outside world to the 'Eternal Internal'. Everything in the physical world is fleeting, finite and just a reflection of reality. Everything in the Soul is eternal and true. 

Vivekananda goes on to say that:

...the word used for the Soul is very significant: it is He who has gone inward, the innermost reality of our being, the heart centre, the core, from which, as it were, everything comes out; the central sun of which the mind, the body, the sense-organs and everything else we have are rays going outward.

This Truth found in the Atman/ Soul/ Deepest Core can flow from the inside out once we clear the path from all our human junk storage. When we go inward, with seeking Self as our goal, clearing and cleaning the path to that innermost part of all...the Soul [Sat Chit Ananda] can shine through onto the world. 

Back to the Vedanta:

Men of childish intellect, ignorant persons, run after desires which are external,and enter the trap of far-reaching death, but the wise, understanding immortality, never seek for the Eternal in this life of finite things....

Vivekananda explains this to mean

...in this external world, which is full of finite things, it is impossible to see and find the Infinite. The Infinite must be sought in that alone which is infinite, and the only thing infinite about us is that which is within us, our own soul. Neither the body, nor the mind, not even our thoughts, nor the world we see around us, are infinite. The Seer, He to whom they all belong, the Soul of the man. He who is awake in the internal man, alone is infinite, and to seek for the Infinite Cause of this whole universe we must go there. In this Infinite Soul alone we can find it.

This that we are seeking-the Infinite ( whether we call it that or not): everlasting peace and happiness, fulfillment, the answers to Life's most pressing questions, God, Heaven, immortality is not found out there. It can only be found inside where the Soul resides.

As Michael Singer says,

If you can be okay inside no matter what is happening outside, you have transcended into a great being.

Moral of this rampage: Look inside!!!

All is well.

Micahel A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( October 2, 2025) The Real Work: Letting Go from Within. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2ts8daBw98&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1&t=2s

Vivekananda (n.d.)2.5.9 Chapter 9: Unity in Diversity [from a lecture delivered on Novemeber 3, 1896] The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda . Kindle Edition

Tathata

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

Zhuangzi

Tathata is  a word that simply means "That, that, and that". It is referring 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 have 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 trusting the below is actually Alan Watts speaking from past recordings 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