Renewing a Committment to Meditation

 Self realization is the act of being conscious of being conscious. Mediation is not what you are meditating on;  its on who is meditating. ...When you are not distracted by your thoughts; when you are not focsuing on your emotions; when you are not caught up with what is coming in through your senses, you get to be you. {Wise masters said} when that state was reached it was like being with God. 

Michael Singer

I am going to get into a routine of meditating more.  Though I do believe samskara release through purification should be the major component of my yoga practice, I realize that I haven't been focusing on the other components enough.  I decided to reinstate a committment to both hatha and meditation, things I have been neglecting.  I will be spending a lot of time writing my book ( I really needed one single point of concentration...one thing to focus on that gives my life a sense of purpose...so I am rewriting the book on samskara release and thus I will hopefully be releasing some of these samskaras)...and that means a lot of sitting.  So, I intend to break up the hours sitting with mini hatha/Tai Chi practices and meditations (as well as other daily activities). 

I am looking into Henry Shukman's  The Way app. and I might purchase it only as an incentive guide.  I would rather continue creating more of my own guided meditations and my own program to follow...but this might just act as a straight line of fence posts to follow, until I venture off into my own path. And I do love Zen...something I am not qualified to teach :) 

All good. All is well in my world. .  

Be Kind to Be Happy?

 

Don't be kind to be happier; be happy so you can be kinder.  The goal is serving Life and one another, not waiting and manipulating life and others so we are served. Loving kindness is who we are. 

Me....

I am realizing this after decades of asking "What can I do or get from Life to be happy?" 

I learnt, along the path, that kindness and putting others first can make one happy. Hmm! 

"I'll try that..." I said. 

I mean, I believe I was always naturally kind, not so much to myself but to others. I was, however, over run by my own pain and that often got in the way of this natural inclination to kindness especially to myself. I was distracted from being this naturally kind being that we all are..... by my programming, by the challenging external events that were perceived by this human as punishments, and by this experience of personal suffering. 

I knew I needed to heal. I heard that kindness would help me to heal.  So, I began to practice kindness for a "selfish" reason.  My meditation practice went into building these compassion muscles. I began to practice Tonglen.  

That is when the focus started to change.  It gradually went from being kind so I could be happy...(and it did make me happier); to seeing that happiness wasn't the goal...kindness was, serving others was, serving Life was....

Love and kindness is not something we do.  It is who we are. Loving kindness brings us back to Self, and when we are there we can be nothing but peaceful, and joyful. 

Hmmm! 

By all means practice kindness so you feel happier but know that such a practice will eventually turn our understanding back to truth. Loving kindness is who we are, not what we do. Kindness is the goal.

All is well!

Finding Sukha

 Drsta Dharma Sukha Virharin

I sit myself down on this cushion 

awkwardly  situated  

between the background of  a soothing emptiness 

and a world that dances like intoxicated fireflies in front of me, 

a world that drags my eyes up and down and all around. 

I close these hyper orbs of  unclear vision 

and breathe in deeply,  

searching as I do for that promised ease,  

for a peace so settling 

it will allow me to slip beneath this cover 

to the here and now.

I am seeking  that 

which will permit this busy human I call "me"

 to rest a weary mind that so needs 

the silence and stillness the eternal moment offers. 

I breathe out, 

releasing the accumulated knots of  tension 

brought on by the busyness of repressed and suppressed living.  

My body and mind settle into the breath 

as if it were a comforting hammock on a sunny July afternoon 

and I find the sukha  I have been looking for.... 

in this place  where it has always been.

 c Dale-Lyn, March 3, 2021

Tit for Tat?

 A LAW there is of ancient fame

By nature's self in every land implanted...

Bear "tit for tat" in mind,

Nor give an elephant a cuff, 

to be repaid in kind.

John Aitken fro "Tit for Tat; a Tale

I let my feelings...the emotional disturbance pushing up on the underbelly of a samskara blockage...spill all over the page in the last few days. I was dealing with a trigger to  this samskara layer and though it was an honest expression of a samskara released, it also carried with it a bit of egoic vengeance. As the painful stored stuff started to come up, I felt the need to "do" something about it, to paint a picture, to build a story  of this human I call "me" as the heroine, big enough to see beyond the behaviour of the other, and the other as the villain...a tiny broken being hiding behind a mighty costume. It was an awkward attempt at a "tit for tat". Why? 

Because I was feeling tiny and powerless to someone who was blowing themself up as mighty and powerful. I had to turn the tables. So, in a position of self righteousness I puffed myself up and began looking down at the other for their apparent self righteousness. When you peel it down to the suchness of the moment, it was all just pain talking and this human need we have to "make sense" of that pain. Truth is, pain was simply meeting pain...her pain meeting my pain, my suppressed pain meeting my experience of externally generated pain, the human expression of pain meeting another human expression of pain. The only thing we have control over here when it comes to "pain"...is the release of this pain from within...so the outside stuff doesn't lead to these long winded tit for tat reactions. :) 

Focus inside, not outside.

Tit for tat is not the way...for if so...what difference lies between tit and tat.

Amit Boghani

All is well

On Zen

 

Zen is all about sitting directly with the human experience.

Henry Shukman

So many beautiful gems of wisdom came from this podcast on Zen...I just quoted ( and sometime paraphrased) what resonated in  me.

Mindfulness is a not separate thing we are responsible for doing; it is something that helps us to realize we are already in a great field of connections and support.

Get to the point where we are seeing through the sense of self

Realization is not contigent on practice...

"This life is a movie and the purpose of life is to turn around and see the projector. "Yogananda

Awakenning and healing go together

The destination has been here all along...In the cart track analogy from ancient Chinese buddhism...one wheel of the cart is mindfulness of what is going on now and the other wheel is awakening...Awakening is the process that is already there. The journey is the destination, It is not one or the other, there is both

Zen is not a path out of the world...it is a path deeply into the world.

Awakening is here and now...there is only now...where else could it be?

"There is only the present moment and everything is here"...Thich Nhat Hanh

Let it all be...

We do these rituals just to keep the mind busy so the reality of the moment can slip in...

"Emptiness First" "Reduce it to the maximun" Andre

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose...Janice Joplin song

"We will not lose...but we never really had to lose things"

Socrates: "There are so many beautiful things in the world that we do not need."

Meditation helps us to align with the part of us that remains okay despite whatever is happening around us or to us. 

Beauty matters...appreciate it.

Empathy is feeling with, but it is not motivating. Compassion is energizing and motivating...[leading us to do something about the suffering of others.]

"The broken ones are my beloved"...sufi poet

If we trust grief, rather than try to avoid it, it can open us up even farther...

When the heart is open... we are alive...we know "this is my real life."

Heartbreak [can be] the great teacher

All things are emcompassed within one great reality...realize  that nonduality in awakening.

Water heats gradually and boils instantly.

You are love!

What is our purpose...to "Love actually." 

What if in the end we really are His love? 

All is well

Henry Shukman with Andre Duqum/Know Thyself ( March, 2026) The 2500 Year Old Trick to Instantly Silence Your Mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMk3ztb66mc&t=1262s

Michael Singer on Handling It

Yesterday I was clever and I was trying to change the world; today I am wise and I am trying to change myself.

Rumi

This intense reaction I had the other night both surprised me and inspired me. It led me away from my focus on what the others were doing, and allowed me to explore what was happening inside me. I felt this compulsion to stop running and to allow all that was crying to come up, to come up.  I sat with it.  I looked deeply into it. I explored that which the others' unconscious behaviour somehow triggered. 

It was amazing.  I didn't think I would be able to accept, let alone understand and release the amount of emotion that surfaced...but I did more than that.  I healed a bit.  Wow! I must thank the people I was recently cursing and wanting to change lol  for doing exactly what they did that inspired this release in me.

The clarity was astounding! 

These are words from Michael Singer that explore the reason why we need to let our samskaras to come up so we can experience and allow Life to be Life.

 It is not about going to God; It is about not hanging around with you.

The ego is constantly preparing itself for the way it will be presented outside, with the intention of creating something that will be a protection from anything that potentionally comes in and make it uncomfortable.

A clear being deals with things out of clarity, not out of ego

It is not about getting away from this thing; it is about getting rid of it. 

The need is to accept that the world is not under your control...

Be open to learning; Open to changing. 

Are you okay with the uncomfortable? 

You, who are in there, is not insecure; you are looking at an ego that is insecure...

[Many of us are]trying to build an inside that works for what the world is doing

Practice being able to handle what didn't feel good

Be the one in the room that can handle things.

If I can handle what is unfolding...I can be happy

If you don't get distracted by you...wait to see what happens..

Notice the resistance and the tendency to push it away...and relax

Learn how to be okay with not being okay...honor and respect when things don't go your way...

You don't go up...you just stop going down...and the energy goes up

Any work you do on yourself changes the energy of the world. 

The purpose of my life is to be able to handle the unfolding of Life that is happening in front of me...

Let go of your need to protect yourself at that level out there....

Micahe A. Singer/Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( May 11, 2026) The Spiritual Art of Handling Life.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX59A7QoGFk&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

Beyond the Entrenched Ego Programming

The personality is an entrenched ego programming, based on a biological and psychosocial need to belong. We create this personality for protection purposes and then we identify with this self concept, falsely believing it is who we are...

Me

Hmmm! That is the definition of personality I came up with as I was listening to Michael Singer's podcast today.  It is a definition that has been brewing inside me for a while now, intensified recently by recognition of this human's lingering concern about what others might think of her.  I could suddenly see so clearly how we build up these protective ego layers, attempt to become what others expect us to become, and do what we can to maintain our place in the pack. We create an ever-changing concept of self that we call "me".

What is the problem with this personality then? 

There is no self concept you can pick that works for everyone. 

Our desire is to create an image that will be okay for everyone, that will not hurt them, annoy them, displease them or make them say, "Strike Three! You're out!!!" How realistic is that?  Everyone is loaded with their own samskaras always on the verge of being triggered by things that we cannot always be aware of or control. Things about us are bound to bother others in some way. We cannot please everyone! 

It is not fun to live from this ego personality. Sure, there are times when everything we seem to do seems pleasing to others and we feel up. Even times when we surprisingly are extra pleasing to others and we feel elated! But it is impossible to maintain that level of successful people-pleasing functioning for ever. Things we do, say, think, believe...how we look, sound, smell...how we appear as these personalities...is going to be off putting to some at times. That's a given. We can not please everybody all of the time. 

We know that, and we live in fear of the moment we do not please someone, don't we? We are always hypervigilant, wondering and worrying about when the others who seem pleased with us now are going to see beyond the imposter costumes we tend to wear, and then reject us. 

So, how do we get beyond this ego conundrum?

According to Michael Singer, we simply notice the ego in action...be aware of its misguided attempts at protecting us from expulsion. Noticing, however, doesn't mean resisting. 

Don't shut her up, don't push her down, just nod. 

I try to be honest with myself and others when I notice my ego personality at work and my people pleasing tendencies. I try to call it out by saying, "Oh...there I go again, worrying about what others might think. Hmm! " 

I observe the human tendency to want the good opinion of others. From a distance, I explore it and look deeply into it. I allow it. I do not shut it up. I don't push the samskaras back down.  I notice them and allow them and all those old core beliefs to emerge. give them a nod and continue observing it all from a distance.  This tendency is definitely beginning to wear away.

Once I catch the ego personality in action I say something to the effect

...just stuff that got caught...I can let go now.

I go back to my inner work of allowing samskaras to be released. This "work" involves allowing for the slow digging away of layer after layer of personality, usually by life. In this case, every time, I do not match the desires or expectations of others, I know it is okay. This lack of approval or down right rejection is good for me. It helps with the inner work. I remind myself of the words Singer shares in the podcast

You've taken on the greatest challenge...the liberation of the soul...

I get back to work.

All is well.  

Michael Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( May 8, 2026) The Illusion of Self: Breaking Free From ego. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU1sVkx_pII&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

Love Beyond the Other

 Love is something you either do or don't do inside yourself...

Love has nothing to do with the other person...it is already in you.

Michael A. Singer

I am going to proclaim something very bold and others may call be "grandiose" for saying such a thing but, "I think very much like Michael Singer does! We have very similar perspectives and wave lengths." 

You or any other human hearing me say that might respond with, "No, you don't! You are just listening and learning from him and more or less regurgitating what he says."

There is some truth to that.  I do listen and learn so much from him. I do assimilate what he has to say, putting it in my own words...but... I was thinking like this long before I ever read "untethered soul".  I was studying yoga long before I knew he existed, coming to many of these realizations on my own. He, however, pushed me further into my understanding of these things by removing the "woo-woo"I kept tripping over, and presenting these ideas in a very practical and secular way.  I just loved the way he explains yoga purification and it inspired me to learn more about samskaras and how to release them...thus the book I am writing now. I do owe much of my learning to him, but not all of it.  Whatever was directing his learning, has also been directing mine...and  possibly yours...and somehow that learning has intersected.

We do differ in our approaches, as well.  I do not pay much attention to low hanging fruit, for example.  I want to dig to the roots of this experience of living. Where as he might say:

Don't dig down to get it [the deeply buried and painful samskara], let it come up to you.  Focus on the low hanging fruit in your samskara release practice first. (paraphrased)....

I say "dig!"

 I realize now it is not so much that we should dig to get to that samskara, it is more of a digging away of the layers on top that prevents those hidden samskaras from coming up. It is about clearing the path.

What are we shoveling away when we clear the path?

We are digging up the articial layers on top of that which we are hiding from. We are shoveling through those parts of the psyche, the false parts of this "me" ego identification that gets in the way of us experiencing who we truly are.  This samskara release approach I share is about removing, or more often, allowing Life to remove the false layers of personality that we over-identify with. If not the personality itself, at least our identificaton with it. 

I thought of that as I listened to the below linked podcast on Love. I recently had this very same conversation with another regarding our expectations for intimate relationships. We discussed how texpecting others to match our preferences gets in the way of allowing the other person to be exactly who they are. And at the same time, expectations lead to resistance of the  person being who they are, stopping them from triggering all our samskaras, so it is easier to remove what is truly in the way of our healing and therefore our innate ability to feel and experience love. Relationships are meant to rumble, shift, and loosen the earth above our samskaras ...to give us the incentive to clear the path  and make room for these samskaras to arise so we can deal with them. So, we can grow into who we truly are.

It is not so much that you love the other person...you love love...

Love is not about the other person.  It is about whether we are open or closed to the internal flow of it that comes form within. What closes the channel for this love to flow through.  Expectations of how someone should be in order for us to love them! 

If you want to feel love all the time...don't close your heart

We need to acept that people have their own sum of accumulated experiences governing how they see and respond to the world...that opens and closes their hearts. They are not there to keep our hearts from closing by matching all our expectations. The job of keeping our hearts open belongs to us...not them.

We need to stop resisting the "what isnness " of our experiences including the experience of relationship. In order to do that we need to surrender and accept.

Accept that people are not the way you want them to be

And reminding ourselves, as we look at the other person who didn't meet our expectations of them...

Nothing you did is worth closing my heart over.

I agree. I accept and learn to embrace these truths.

All is well!

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True (June, 2026) Love is not Fund: It Is Unblocked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjN9fHFHNEw&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

A Book and a Lot of Greats

 Harnessing your spiritual connection [to your deepest Self] isn't about what you know. It's about how deeply you feel. How honestly you live. And how courageously you are willing to show up as your truest self. 

Sean Collyns

Reading a great book with great writing on a topic that resonates greatly within me. It is with great surprise that I found myself enthralled with this book, written by a psychic medium with great public acclaim. I have a great deal of skepticism, as you know, when it comes to the genuine intentions and ability of psychic mediums. So, I am not sure why I listened when something from the "Great unknown" inspired me to click onto one of his reading sessions, and then led me to go to Amazon to purchase his book. I wasn't expecting much.  I really wasn't...just following that compulsion.  But I found the writing to be great.  And the topic matter...not so much about talking to dead people...but about growing at that deepest level of our being...to hit me right in my core with a great big, "Yes!" The book has had a great impact on me so far! 

That is a lot of "greats", isn't it? 

All is well

Sean Collyns (2026) Your Soul is the Source of Your Power. Hay House: Sydney

"What Will Others Think of 'Me' ?"

You will become way less concerned about what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. 

David Foster Wallace

I love the above quote and find myself laughing at this "me" a bit when I read it. I just spent hours editing a web page that I gave my most recent yoga students access to. Why? Because I was asking the question, "What will others think of 'me'?" I was programmed since childhood to ask that question whenever I did or was about to do something that would call attention to this "me". (Still hear my mother's shrill voice in my ears). 

I laugh because I am reminded by the above words how little people actually think of my "little me" when they are too busy thinking of their own. Of course, there are glorious moments when others think of us in a positive way. That's nice but that is something we cannot become attached to.  It is very brief and doesn't last before their mind takes them on another journey elsewhere. And if judging, finding fault, criticizing,  or rejecting any expression of my little me will help someone distract from the problematic focus of their little me or help to inflate it in some way...well, then maybe they will spend more than a moment or two out of their earthly life spans focusing on me and what I offer in a negative way. But even that is less than a blink of an eye in that life span...isn't it? It certainly isn't worthy of the time and focus we put into worrying about what they might think and what we attempt to do to rectify their opinion if it is negative . Crazy.

So, there I was going through my imperfect....but potentionally very helpful.... videos for anyone wanting to take yoga a bit farther... editing the notations, removing those that I thought would be too out there for this crowd..for any crowd actually. "Sprucing the place up for company" lol. All because that question was in my mind.  I offered a gift and like I do when I offer  gifts of me...I question, "What will others think of this me?" 

It is not an overwhelming thought...I have long sinced gotten past the concern I used to have for other opinion...but there are still traces there...leading me to question and revamp the value of my gifts in terms of what others might think of them, and me as a result.  Sometimes, I retract my gifts before the others actualy receive them. What a pity.

A gift is a gift. It is inspired, created, and passed on.  What others think of it is really none of my business after that. I know that...but....

There I was wondering what others would think of this gift and me as the creator and giver of it. sigh

It is funny how we assume people are going to think more of us than what they do, isn't it? What does it really matter anyway. We have one Life to live. We can't live for other opinion.

We give our gifts because that is what we are called to do...whether they are accepted by others or not.  The giving from the heart makes the giver's life  richer, if not the receiver's.

All is well

Act, Dream, Believe

 To accomplish great things we must not only act,but also dream; not only plan but also believe.

Analote France

A lot to unpack with that one...will be back.

All is well

The Thoughtless Gap

[When you are in that still space, that gap between thoughts] the unconditioned consciousness can act and speak through you.

Eckhart Tolle

I know I spend much more time than I ever did in that gap. I see myself slipping into it when I look out at the tops of the flowers emerging from the window box; when I am watching the birds at the feeder, or listening to their songs. 

I really feel it when I am walking in the woods...one step at a time on the path that just goes around in one big circle with no beginning, no ending. Like the moment I suppose.  As I walk without any real thought of "doing", I take in all the sensory information: poplar trees, bigger and older than I have ever seen before, beautiful birch and cedar, new leaves emerging, the smell of honey suckle and apple blossom, the buzzing of insects, the sound of wind or rain in the branches; the huffing and puffing of my dogs as they sniff about tugging and pulling at the leash.  Though I am recalling and recording description now, at the time there is no thinking about these things; no narration- just the felt experience and awareness of them. Time slips away...there is no "when I..." there is just "this, here, now." 

I am not aware at those times of being in the thoughtless gap that I, as one of 8.3 billion human beings,  am experiencing "presence"...I am not aware of a "me" and an "it".  The moment just is and I am it. Everything, including me, all tangled up in one perfect moment of existence. 

It isn't until I reflect on it like I am doing now that I see that I was aware, in a thoughtless gap. Then athe writing comes...the unconditioned consciousness acts and speaks through me and reminds me of where we humans are menat to be.

Hmm!

All is well.

Samma Ditthi

 Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.

John Lennon

I have been contemplating the purpose and meaning of Life for quite some time. Wondering how best can we humans experience these gifts of Life we have been given to play with for a few decades of earthly time? I came up with this after listening to this Sounds True offering today:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKBiaOnoMmg

Your life takes its shape from what your mind dwells upon...

Huh? 

Your personal mind takes its shape from what the individual dwells upon on...Your brain takes its shape from what the mind focuses on (neuroplasticity)...Your body takes the shape from what the brain focuses on. Are we, then, what the mind focuses on and can we then control body and life by changing the way we think? 

What I got from this is that...yes...it can and we do need to work with our minds if we want to change the lives we are living. We also need to change our view of the world...what we are looking on and what we are expecting from that which we are looking on.

Does that mean that we are shaping what it is we are looking at? That we are creating lives of struggle and scarcity or lives of abundance and ease? That we have the power to get what we want by changing our thoughts and manifesting etc.? 

"Can I use my spiritual powers of will to force the moments in front of me to be the way I want them to be?...

Yes, you can ,,,,but I feel sorry for you...cuz there's a whole lot of people who didn't want it that way and they didn't get  to have it the way it naturally would have been....

So, there is a ripple effect of manifesting that goes beyond the wants and desires of the "little me" that we often fail to consider? We do not tend to explore the far reaching consequences of getting what the "little me" wants ...how pulling that from the universe may impact other beings, nature, karma, the natural flow of universal laws. 

So much of manifesting is all about the "little me's" desire to be comfortable, isn't it? It isn't about experiencing the natural flow of reality or about why we are wanting to manifest certain outcomes in the first place. What we fail to see is that the answer to our so called pursuit of happiness is not about manifesting and changing the "out there", it is about dealing with the "in here."

This brings me right back to where I was in my discomfort...back to the painful but neccessary process  purification.

Either you accept reality and let go of  the garbage you stored inside because you couldn't handle the realiy that happened before, or you go out and try to manipulate reality to be the way you want it to be right now....what about everyone else? 

Maybe the big question isn't so much, "How can I change the neuroplasticity in "my" brain, so both "my" Life and "my" health are more comfortable for "me"."  Maybe it isn't about, how can I learn to manifest so I can change what shows up in front of "me".  Maybe the big question is how do I view reality now?

The big question is: 

How do we tend to view reality when things happen? The "right way" or the "wrong way"?

The first "Right" in the Buddhist Eight Fold Path is "Right View" or Samma Ditthi. Right View is all about seeing reality exactly as it is. It is all about seeing Life through the Four Noble Truths: There is suffering; more importantly, there is a cause for that suffering (our pulling in and pushing away from our experiences based on our preferences) and there is a way to get beyond suffering- the Eight-Fold Path.

The practice of right view is to make a choice, moment by moment, not to focus our gaze on what we want things to be, nor to ignore the parts we wish were not there, and not to close our eyes. Its looking at what is right in front of us. Koun Franz/ Lion's Roar

Can you look at what is right in front of you? Can you accept Life for what it is, even when painful things happen? 

Can I honor and accept its [the happening's] right to exist? Singer

Most of us are taught to resist those things, aren't we? To pretend, deny, hide, avoid, numb, suppress and repress. First, we judge the happening as being good or bad, right or wrong, should be or shouldn't be. Then, if it is painful...we close our eyes! Our judgements and resistance prevent us from experiencing the lives we were given to experience fully. 

It is not that it is good or bad, right or wrong- it just is.... Why? ...It is because...

I have been having a challenging time over the course of the last few months.  I have been practicing samskara release through purification for years now...which simply means attempting to heal by releasing all that stored trauma etc from within.  I am really getting somehwere with that.  I have, or life has, peeled away so many layers and I have hit the samskara layers. It isn't easy when all that stuff that was stored in pain comes back up to conscious awareness. I spent my life running from it and here it is ...smack dab in my face and I have to deal with it for the first time probably. Yuck!  I have also been looking around at these present "life circumstances" I erroneously call "my life". ...and sometimes, despite my awareness and practice, find myself judging it as "bad, wrong, shouldn't be". I resist the moment by wanting something other than it. I also personalize the experience by focusing on this human's little slice of existence, saying things like, "When is this human going to catch a break?"

After months of narrowing this focus of awareness...this view...down onto the "me" and its problematic life drama, it was getting really dark and heavy in here.  I just wanted happy change...for things "out there"  to become easier, so I could feel better "in here".  So, I began this week to dream and visualize, positively affirm, and attempt to manifest a better life.  Now, I know there is nothing wrong with doing that. Science has proven that hope and positivity are powerful energies that can change the neuroplasticity of our brains, and therefore our life experience. It is much better to focus on the positive than it is to focus on the negative.

 I found myself in the last couple of days looking into the idea that maybe I can change the reality of what is happening around me and to this "me" by changing my perspective, my view.  By being more positive and hopeful...by ...heaven forbid... "manifesting".  Though I loved the increase in energy, the focus didn't really feel right. Why? This type of focus  keeps me from exploring the real question that will set me free. 

How can I accept, allow, and honor life as it is? 

The temporary manifesting focus was all about 'me'...this entity that is really nothing more than a self concept. It was denying the truth that though I could, through this powerful mind once it is trained, get what I desire.... Life isn't here to serve this "me"...it isn't all about "me". I am just one of 8.3 billion humans on this planet. My time here is just a blink of an eye. What can I know in this blink of an eye compared to what the planet, which has been here for 4.5 billion years, knows...and the cosmos which has been here for over 13 billion years knows?  

It isn't all about me and my desires or aversions. This idea of "me" is in the way of the true experience of Life. That being said, we do need to love all of who we are, including this me identity, I believe, in order to truly love others, to truly love and experience Life.  We also have to gently love this "self" away....if that makes sense... with Right View. Hmm! Back to the drawing board and not the dream board for this human.

A great spiritual being... they don't want it to be the way they want...they don't have a want...there is just experiencing reality and doing what can be done to raise the energy in that moment.

All is well! 

Michael Singer/Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( June 1, 2026)  You don't need to Rise; You Need to Release. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goVMUe6yJrA

Koan Franz (May 24, 2023)  The Eight Fold Path: Right View in Lion's Roar.  https://www.lionsroar.com/right-view/

Sounds True ( May 31, 2026) Your Brain Was Built for Predators...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKBiaOnoMmg

Yoga Anyone?: A Blast from the Past

 Here is a little something I originally did up for my yoga students during the pandemic. I just ran across it recently...had forgotten all about it. Thought it was worthy of sharing with anyone who might benefit.

Be patient.  Takes a few minutes to download.

https://express.adobe.com/page/tWkqUA9YwK13m

All is well!

Hope's Light

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

Desmond Tutu

The sun is shining brilliantly and I feel my heart lighter than it has been in days. I am experiencing...ugh...what I believe is...hope? Something I often dismiss as an unhealthy defense mechanism. Hope... yes...I am experiencing the lightness of hope. I am not weighed down by the heavy clouds that have followed me around for days ( both literally and figuratively) and the weight of "This is it! It is only going to get worse from here" that I was trudging around carrying. I feel a relief of that weight, that darkness, as I look out at blue sky.

It wasn't the change in weather that brought this on (though it definitely helps). It was a requested sign or a few different signs I received from, let's just say, "the universe". I have been praying, intending, asking to be shown a way through this darkness and I got signs that things are going to change for this human...more or less told that she has done the work required and it is time to step off the hamster wheel of effort she put herself on, taking her nowhere. Things are gong to change as long as she stays out of the way with her resisting tendencies.  

So, here I am. Allowing hope...that feeling expereince I tend to discredit...guiding the way.

All is well.

Obeying the Compulsion

 

Let yourself be drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will never lead you astray.

Rumi

Here I go with the shorts again and I am not sure why.  Other than..."It seemed like a good idea at the time." lol.

Some kind viewer, more than one actually, suggested that I would get more views with the shorts, leading to more subscribers.  I never really set out to get subscribers...a few views for sure...but not subscribers so much. I just wanted to be able to practice my speaking and my ability to pass on what I was learning in hope of it being of benefit to another. I wanted it to be more about Self than self. That was my mission.

 But because ego is still around, I found myself looking at the numbers much more than I like, and wondering how I could get more.  I already have the lecture hall past full capacity in terms of subscribers, why do I want more? Still, I heeded the advice and even enjoyed the immediate ego gratification publishing shorts offered. I received more views, more likes, and an immediate "I see you; I hear you!" reward for doing what I do here. I got more subscribers. 

When this happens I get all confused about the purpose of my being here doing what I do in the videos and this blog. Ironically, I pulled out a question from the jar the other day that led to this answer and subsequently the short above:

All is well.

Just Something You are Experiencing?

 

Depression is an invitation.  It is the first phase guiding us into an awakening. Depression leads to transcendence and we can track that in the brain. We find that when people find the yearning and struggle, it is the precursor; it is the annuciation, of a spiritual expansion coming. If we say yes to it and walk the full path. So, the next time you start to feel anxious or depressed or we aren't getting what we want...that is not a bad thing. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/t946xC_wCzM

I have been waking up every morning with this big knot of sadness, confusion, and a sense of being stuck in me.  Every morning lately, I feel like I, as a little human, am a mess. Why? For several reasons that have nothing to do with the reality of the experience.  It is not the sadness, the struggle, the feeling stuck and displaced that is the problem. 

What is the cause then crazy lady? 

There are many reasons. The first cause is that I am bringing my focus down to this "me".

We are a mess because we don't keep things in perspective....Everything comes down to "me". Michael Singer

We are a mess because we are taking it personally, when it isn't personal. We are spinning off and wallowing in self pity. Pema Chodron, paraphrased.

The second cause is I am also resisting it. I feel like this experience is "bad, wrong, shouldn't be".  I struggle against the what isness of it. According to Pema Chodron, I am spinning out away from what is. 

There is a difference between pain and suffering. Pain is the what isnness of the experience and the suffering is lack of acceptance of reality. Pema Chodron, paraphrased

That leads to the third reason. I am not collaborating with reality. I am not accepting the suchness or the what isness of the moment.  In those moments I am feeling sad, I am feeling confused about where I am and where I am supposed to go from here, and  I am feeling stuck in an unwanted set of circumstances.  It doesn't feel good.  But this is the experience I am having.  It is what it is. My resistance of reality cause the suffering. 

"I don't want to experience this...I don't want to experience reality" Good luck! (Singer)

I am not seeing the beauty of simply being able to experience this as it is. 

Beauty? What beauty could be in this experience of pain?

First of all, it is a perfect and beautiful sign  of a much needed debridement ...of a healing taking place. 

Say what, crazy lady? Depression is  sign of a healing?

Yes, I believe it to be.  In this case, for this human, anyway. So many false layers of protective personality have been removed over the last few years. This protective personality may have stopped me from feeling this sadness I am experiencing now...but that sadness was there for decades.  It is something I stuffed and stored years ago. I built these layers of Redeemer Ego around it in the form of a personality, a false, 'masquerading' self...but that personality became like unhealthy tissue preventing the tissue beneath it from growing and being truly healthy. In this process of waking up, Life has removed many of those false layers through circumstance and I, finally realizing the unhealthiness of this outer tissue, cooperated and did my part in removing it. Together we have exposed the vulnerable tissue underneath and it stings.  I am seeing it and experiencing it as it is....for the first time in decades. It and all that has contaminated my life is now free to be released. The process is painful leading to such emotions...but it is a necessary part of true healing.

How else can such a heart wrenching feeling be beautiful?

Because it is reality and reality is beautiful as it is. This, that we get to experience in every given moment...be it considered "good, bad, or ugly" by the personality... is beautiful for consciousness ...and consciousness doesn't get all tangled up in the personalization of it like personal mind does. A moment of depression is one of many different experiences consciousness gets to have. In those moments when I wake up with that knot in my gut, consciousness gets to have that experience through this human I call me. 

The moment you are experiencing is a special experience...it has never happened before and it will never happen again and o are the one that is experiencing it. Singer

The moment I notice the knot in my gut, that feeling of sadness, that anxiety, that sense of being stuck and this need to do something about it, can be a wonderful, precious experience. Why? Because  consciousness is having it.  It is like consciousness is saying, "Oh, so this is what it feels like for this human I call "me" to be stuck in in an experience it isn't sure it wants." 

Depression  gives us a chance to fall back away from overidentification with little me and back into the perspective of consciousness. ...to observe what the human is experiencing without the attachment of "me, my, and mine". Who is feeling the suffering? Just the resisting "little me". Sure, consciousness has the experience of pain and discomfort, as it is here to experience amongst all the other things it can experience, but it doesn't have to get all caught up in  the suffering that only personal mind can generate.

"I am the one in here experiencing this..." 

Suffering forms like depression, then, can help us to expand away from our focus on little me and into the spiritual experience

Once we recognize that we can use our suffering in a beautiful way to take the mind from me and into our interbeingness with everyone and everything, according to Pema Chodron. In a paraphrased form of her blessing, I will leave you with this:

May our personal suffering...instead of being something that causes us to turn protectively inward and close off ... become a vehicle for understanding the shared experience of humanity through compassion for the like suffering of others... 

All is well

Andre Duquim/Know ThySelf ( ?) Depression Might Actually Be the Beginning of Your Awakening.https://www.youtube.com/shorts/t946xC_wCzM

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/Sounds True (May, 2026) The Truth About Acceptance: Why Resisting Reality Causes Suffering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiXOOd4iiNo&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

Pema Chodron/Sounds True. (May 27, 2026) Why Pulling Away From What is Hard Always Makes It Worse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfCwjumpJRY&t=4s

Doing Great Things?

 If I cannot do great things, I will do small things in a great way.

Martin Luther King Jr

I may never be known for doing great things in this lifetime. I may never do great things. I may never be recognized, appreciated, or rewarded for what I put out there. That's okay. I can still offer the bit I have to the world and hope that someone or something finds some type of benefit in it. Can't I?  As long as I am serving Life in some small way...isn't that enough?

All is well

Stealing the Mind from Care?

 Flowers with the sweetest odors 

filled all the sunny air,

and not alone refreshed the sense, 

but stole the mind from care.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I sit here at the small table that fits this space, looking out at the tops of my flowers recently planted into boxes outside my windows. They themselves, in their natural splendor are beautiful...the boxes...not so beautiful. They are too small for the window frames.  I was hoping that it would be okay but I know from my research into expert opinion that the box should match or be bigger than the window frame itself. Sigh! I assume they look "tacky!". Once again, I did something imperfect and I am now wondering and worried about what others will think. This return of a thought focus I have been without for many months, I know, is a carry over from the open vulnerability I experienced yesterday. 

I am not like other people in the way I view things.  What is okay for me in my domestic attempts is not okay for most.  I realize that.  I look at nature and see the perfect beauty in the imperfect disorder of it. I do little to manipulate or control it...and when I do it all feels so wrong to myself and likely to others who are witnessing my awkward attempts. I just wanted flowers growing in their own lovely way in front of my house and that is exactly what they are doing. Why does it matter what type of box they are in or how they appear to humans? The wasps who are still in control of this household, because of my fear of them :), like the flowers just as they are. 

It is all good. It is all as it is.

"So Be It!"

Mind can be the biggest trap, or the biggest liberator. The personal mind is the biggest trap... and you are completely addicted to it.... Do you know what liberation means? Freedom from the personal mind....The personal mind is a problem...Are you willing to look underneath that?   You [can]eventually let it go...becoming nobody. 

Michael A. Singer 

 "So be it!"

Imagine being able to say that to everything that unfolds in front of us or through us, regardless of what it is. 

How I long to be able to say. "So, be it!"  to every experience life hands this human I call me to feel its way through. Why don't I?  This "me" is still there, addicted to the personal mind, reacting to circumstances where it perceives it is being judged, criticized, or expected to be less than others.  

There are people in this life experience, whom I love dearly, but who, without meaning to, poke that samskara within me that shouts, "You are not only not enough but you deserve to be shamed, criticized and punished for your less than normal efforts. " These individuals are good and amazing people who just happen to have a lot more than this human has. They earned their success and I am truly happy for them. Yet, personal mind still tends to feel "less than" when I am with them...not good enough in anything I do or say.  As a result, I find myself sometimes ingenuine...attempting to create image, please in some ways; becoming overly defensive, and self protective in others. 

Are they responsible for this feeling experience within me? 

No! Absolutely not. I am the only being responsible. I am simply experiencing samskara triggering while in their presence.  I stuffed and stored very radio-active and sensitive-to-explosion stuff within me.  Being that the shame samskara is already making its way to the surface, and I have already peeled away so many  layers of ego-self  that once offered at least some form of false protection from the world, this humanis very vulnerable and 'sensitive'. It is much easier for others to trip over the invisible trigger line, to expose, aggravate, and ignite this toxic stuff I stored inside....without even realizing they ever did. It doesn't take much these days to stir up my insides. The samskara ridden personalities of others, unknowingly, tend to stir up these inner emotional currents and core beliefs from this human's personality.  

And that is a wonderful thing to a mind that wants to be free from the trap of personal mind! 

So, be it!

I woke up feeling this innocently triggered samskara of shame and unworthiness once again in the center of my core. It made its wiggling and writhing way up to conscious awareness. I didn't squish it back down, though personal mind was strongly encouraging me to do so. I said , "So be it!" and  I sat with it.  I could see where it was coming from, and why, but I didn't dwell on story. The tears came. I allowed them. 

So, be it!

Once I took a step back, I could also see that the experience was a result of a personal mind trap. In my addicted tendency,  I was directing this amazing, infiniitely wide consciousness, the impersonal mind, to once again stare down at the "little me."  I realized, I was allowing my perception of Life to be all about me again. So, I took another deep breath and another mental step backwards. I recited my intention to "open, release, purify, heal, align, love self, expand my heart, live life through Love, and to find freedom in awakening".   I breathed my way through the physical and emotional discomfort, honoring both. I released that which was ready for release and then I went back to the business of living.  Hmmm! 

There is still a big knot in my belly but it is getting smaller and smaller with every release, with every trigger. 

So be it!

I may not appear to be much on the outside to others. That is true. An imperfect human who has little, does little, offers little but a few imperfect gifts to the world. But...I also know that is just the way personal minds, including mine, may see it. It is not who I am. 

What is inside you is more beautiful than anything you could ever feel [or show] from the outside. 

I am becoming "nobody" and I am  greater for it.

So, be it!

All is well.

Michael A. Singer ( May, 2026) The Impersonal Nature of Reality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LffWNeYwXVY