The Nature of Chaos

Unless we understand the nature of Entropy, we can not resolve the deleterious effects that make it difficult to achieve desired results. Therefore a sound knowledge of the Second Law is extremely important to our quest for happiness.
-https://www.rationality.net/entropy.htm


I am so glad to be reintroduced to the second natural law of thermodynamics: Entropy.  Why?  Well it helps to validate the state of my surroundings and my life situation right now as, at the very least, being a natural phenomenon. :)  I am following the natural law of order allowing things to just be as nature would have them. lol

What is Entropy? 

Entropy is the law that loosely and by no means scientifically states the universe has a tendency to move from a state of order to disorder...the universe has a tendency to move toward chaos.  Of course...chemists, physicists and mathematicians will argue until the cows come home  on the 'actual scientific meaning and limitation 'of the term when it comes to thermodynamics. (http://entropysimple.oxy.edu/content.htm). 

I am not even going to go there.  I couldn't if I wanted to. :) I just like to think  that things follow a natural flow from high energy order that becomes dispersed in a random fashion to low energy disorder.  It is natural for life to be a bit messy and it takes great energy and resistance against a natural momentum to keep order.

A simple Lay person's Example

Housework is a great example of my version of the law (and my understanding  is limited).  We build a big beautiful new home...all its structures are neat and in order.  It's natural progression, however, is to go from this order to a state of disintegration and 'mess'.  If I don't pick up after myself or let the dust pile up...nature will take over...piles will build up, dust will build up.  If I don't clean away the food particles left from meals the biological world will eventually step in and do what it is inclined to ( bugs and germs will multiply in chaotic fashion).  We will have what we would consider a messy, dirty home. It is, in our interpretation, chaotic.

Natural

Yet it is natural...requiring the least amount of energy expenditure from us.  It requires no time or effort on our part to let things fall to pieces, does it?  We just 'let go' and do not resist  this natural progression.  We could resist it, at least to some extent, as many of us do, by putting energy into tidying up and cleaning. By fixing things that get broken. 

Resistance

It takes time and energy to resist disorder...and basically that is all we are doing...putting energy into resisting.  We are also just redistributing.  We take the pile of papers off the coffee table and put it in the junk draw...we just moved it.  We call it creating order in our homes...but we aren't doing that...we are not 'creating' anything ...we are just resisting and redistributing a natural phenomenon from taking over as nature intends.

Is it chaos? 

What we, lay people,  loosely term chaos is what the scientific world calls 'randomization'. Randomization increases as energy release decreases. Things that were once orderly in their appearance begin to happen at random.  They become unpredictable and more challenging to control or 'fix' because of this unpredictability. I am told that if I don't stay on top of things in my home and continue to let nature do what nature does, it will eventually reach a point where I won't be able to do anything to make it better.  The disintegration will be irreparable.

We see the messy house as chaos...We place a subjective interpretation on it...but in the natural world is it chaos?  No...it is a perfect pattern of existence, of death, of growth of dispersion of energy...of Life. what we as humans see as random...is actually a result of a universal plan we have yet to understand. Maybe it isn't 'natural' to fight nature and have an orderly home.  (Thank God!  lol.  I am doing something right these days!)

No I am not saying,  let your house fall apart.  I am not saying don't do anything or put any effort into getting what you want. I don't like the state of my surroundings right now...natural or not. I want a little order...I just want to expend the least amount of energy (what I have to offer) and not get caught up in time pressure. 

We just need to be okay with 'random', and be free, maybe, of the need to predict and control before we can accept. That's all. We need to stop expending so much effort and time into doing and allow things to simply 'be' as they are, every now and again.  I guess what I am saying, is that we need a balance between doing and being.

Of course, I am oversimplifying some challenging to understand universal laws...but I guess what I am trying to say...is that it is okay to just let things Be from time to time.  As human 'doings' we have a tendency to resist, reorder, predict the future and to  control nature and Life...we put great energy into doing that.  We get caught up on this notion of 'Time' and become so focused on the time it takes to work against this law. We just don't allow Life to do what Life does. 

We also tend to  see chaos when Life sees order and a natural progression of things. If circumstances are not going our way...if we go from a state of orderly life situation to one that is full of messy situations...we say 'Life is chaotic'. What is random and chaotic for us, however, may not be random and chaotic for Life.  Maybe, according to Life, it all may  simply be going as planned?

Hmm!  This natural law of entropy may give us a little something to think about.

All is well in my world.

References

http://entropysimple.oxy.edu/content.htm

http://see.library.utoronto.ca/SEED/Vol2-3/2-3%20resolved/Salthe.htm

https://www.rationality.net/entropy.htm

Forces of Nature

We are just forces of nature with a sense that there is a person there until it is not.
Suzanna Marie (Davidya.ca)


Hmmm!  How beautiful and simple that seems.  Is it really as simple as all that??

I am trying to make sense of this journey of waking up I am on.  It is a bizarre little journey that I seem to have no control over.  I am completely and utterly confused most times lol.  Nothing seems to make sense to me.  I have a hard time understanding any of it...at the same time I cannot seem to focus or accomplish anything in my physical world...in my old ego known life. I feel pulled from both ends.  Nothing is stable.

 I have set out, then, to listen, compare  and learn from others' experiences.I am glad to find out that I am not alone.  I am  not the only person who has ever gone through this....far from it  :)  Many, many people are coming to the same understandings I am...maybe in somewhat different ways but I am not alone. That allows me to depersonalize my own experience somewhat...to see it not so much as something "I" am going through but as the particular way the Life force is being expressed through this 'little me'.

How is it being expressed through me at this point?


Through Thoughts and words?

I can intellectualize all this....even though it is not an intellectual experience.   I can put it into words...even though it is something to be experienced rather than explained.  It is like someone or something is inputting all the Truth into me and I am downloading it on the page.  It is automatic and quick...natural.  I seem to have little control over that even.  I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be writing about awakening at this point in my life.  Still...I do...again and again. This is how it is happening in me...this is how Life is being expressed through me. This is how I am waking up.

But who is "I" and who is waking up?  This 'I", that I am, is realizing intellectually, at least, that I am merely a force of nature who is as of yet still clinging to a sense of person.  That's why I feel pulled and unstable. I haven't yet let go of my sense of person. 

Saying to Life, "You Win!"

I haven't yet truly began to trust that Life knows what it is doing, that is guiding me and supporting me.  I am still clinging to 'me' and resisting Life  to some extent.  I am still afraid, for all kinds of reasons, to give up this need to control so that the 'Force of Nature' can just Be.

It is not like I haven't been given the opportunity to submit. Life keeps throwing circumstances at me, with the intention, maybe, of getting me to put my hands up and say, "Okay you win...I give up.  We will do it your way!"

I have already conceded so much. I have accepted and let go of so many things and diminished my sense of person.  I did give up, to a great extent, on my need to control and 'fix' my health situation...I have totally put aside my need to get diagnosis and appropriate treatment from allopathic medicine. I gave up on that! I have given up a job and my professional identity when I realized that my body and life  limitations were beyond my control.  I let Life have that one. I have certainly given up any dependence on material wealth...my bank account attests to that one.  :)

Still clinging to a need to 'do', find and fix.

Yet I am still clinging somewhere, still fighting, still consumed with the need to do 'something' to make this better, to fix my parenting crisis' and at the same time  find harmony between Self and self until there is no self, just Self ! (That is the spiritual equivalent to 'How much wood, can a woodchuck chuck lol)

I feel like there are things I gotta 'do' and gotta 'find' both in ego's world and in the greater one. Yeah...I am still hung up on doing...When I don't do...I feel so guilty and so unsettled.

I keep thinking that if I felt more peace...more ease..if my life circumstances became less chaotic...this would all be signs that 'I am there'.  I would be a better being for those I love.  And though I have precious moments of peace...I feel so much chaos!  Man...I don't know lol.  I don't know anything.  I just know I am not there yet!  And that is okay! I just have to be where I am, right here and right now.  Eventually, whatever remains of this  sense of person will disappear.  I am confident of that.:)

It is all good!



References:

Davidya (November 19, 2016) On the Falling Away of Self-Adyashanti and Suzanna Marie. Davidya.ca.  Retrieved from https://davidya.ca/2016/11/19/on-the-falling-away-of-self-adyashanti-and-susanne-marie/

Mad Man's Dream?

Not everyone is capable of madness; and of those lucky enough to be capable, few have the courage for it.
-August Strindberg (Early 20th century Swedish playwright) (a-Z quotes)


Yah!  It is all so crazy

Every now and again...I get this overwhelming realization about just how different I am from other people...and it floors me.  I see where I am at , at this point of my life, sometimes with the vision of an awakening person ...and that is pretty cool.  I feel inspired, creative, unique and motivated. 



Other times I see my reflection and my life situation through the eyes of a 55 year old woman who has been conditioned to believe her entire life to date that being a productive member of society and following all 'the rules' is the right thing to do...therefore I am either crazy or totally in the wrong.  I am not sure which. 

Over the last couple of days I have been seeing myself with these blurry appendages on my face and not feeling oh so happy with what I am seeing and where I am at. I am allowing myself to fall victim to other-opinion (both assumed and real.:))  The world looks pretty dark and a tad fearful...especially when I look into my bank accounts lol.  I slip so quickly into this mental state and question: Which world is real?  The one I see in physical form or the one, Something tells me, exists beyond the seen and heard. So few people seem to think the way I do...to question ingrained beliefs,  to step aside and leave everything behind. Maybe, I am just crazier than a bag of hammers? 

I could probably get more than a few people to attest to that:) .  If I am not crazy, maybe I am just wrong in my thinking and decision making?

I doubt sometimes...and the rare occasion I want to go back to the world where I worked to earn money and pushed my body and mind beyond what was comfortable to do this.  I want to go back into the school of guppies and see if I can find a way to make my fins and gills keep up,  Why?  Because sometimes I think it would be easier than awakening.

Man, how many people actually believe or even consider the idea of 'awakening' without rolling their eyes or having judgmental and critical thoughts? Why the heck am I suddenly here on the other side of that judgment and feeling...knowing...that I couldn't go back even if I wanted to?  It is just so bizarre   I, my ego, is reacting to this change in thinking, feeling, being and  it is wagging a finger at me saying, "How could you do this to me?" Ego is what is generating the doubt. It does not like where I am going.

Regardless if ego likes it or not, if others like it or not or of society and the world at large like it or not...  I am going in this direction.  I feel a certain Truth calling me and I have no choice but to follow. I am determined to see in a different way.

I would not perceive such dark and fearful images.  A madman's dream is hardly fit to be my choice, instead of all the loveliness with which You blessed creation; all its purity, its joy and its eternal, quiet home in You. -ACIM-W-263:2:3-4

What do you see as the madman's dream: one possibly created by ego or one created by God?

All is well in my world

It is what it is!

Flicking Off the Worry Switch

Worrying does not accomplish anything. Even if you worry twenty times more, it will not change the situation of the world. In fact, your anxiety will only make things worse. Even though things are not as we would like, we can still be content, knowing we are trying our best and will continue to do so. If we do not know how to breathe, smile and live our lives deeply, we will never be able to help anyone.
-Thich Nhat Hanh from The Heart of the Buddha's Teachings https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8002976-worrying-does-not-accomplish-anything-even-if-you-worry-twenty

Do you ever wish there was a switch that you could simply flick off when it comes to worry?  A switch that made everything clearer and less scary to look at?  One that brought you away from all those future possibilities and 'what ifs' to the moment you were in? A switch that by the simple movement of your fingers could end the tormenting mind activity that was so darned exhausting?

We all know, at this point, that Thich Nhat Hanh is right, don't we?  Worry does not accomplish a darn thing. It only makes matters worse. All that anxiety is hard on the mind.  All that anxiety is hard on the person.  All that anxiety is hard on the world.  Yet here, most of us are, worrying our lives away.

I am no better.  I am worrying.  I worry about silly things and I also worry about challenging things. I have situations in my life that others support as 'worrisome'. I can get lots of validation that I indeed have a right to worry.  I could feed the ego real good with other validation and worry could run wild through my life with some form of righteous abandonment......but...that's not what I want.  I do not want to spend any more time in senseless worry.  So how do I flick the switch and put an end to the energy source that feeds worry?

Well Hanh says it all in the above quote.  He tells us, in not so many words ,what we can do to avoid getting lost in worry. He tells us to:

• Try our best (within our locus of control) to change the situation that is causing us to worry.  That, of course, would involve knowing what we have control over and what we don't.  We can not make people change but we can encourage, teach and support in a non-judgmental and loving way.  We cannot pull people away from dangerous self-destructive paths but we can lead by example when they are ready to follow.  We can't change many of the things life hands us as it unfolds but we can choose whether we respond to them or  react.
• Commit to continue doing so
• But know that sometimes things are not always going to be in our control.  When things or people are not as we expect them to be or think they should be and our efforts at changing them fail...that's okay. Sometimes the best thing we can do is let go of our need for control...to trust Life and just let it be what it is.  "It is what it  is and I'm okay with that" is my new mantra.
• Accept, then, the situation  for what it is regardless if we like it or not
• 'Be' Content Anyway.  Even when life seems to be handing us plenty of things that ego tells us we 'should' worry about...we do not need to listen to ego. We do not need to worry!  We can, instead, just be content with being in the Life situation...whatever it is.  The key thing is 'being'.  We can just be content with being regardless of the details or circumstance.  Get back to being.  In being we can be nothing but content.  That doesn't mean we have to be thrilled or even happy when we ponder the circumstances...just accepting.  Contentment comes when we put away our need to resist or struggle against life.
• Breathe and become aware of that breath when the worry is turned  on.  As soon as you notice the worry thoughts, the thing to do is bring yourself away from their projections into the future and to settle in your moment...in the now.  The quickest way to do that is to breathe slowly and focus on that breath going in and going out.  Just feel it inside you as you bring yourself  gently out of your head and into the here and now. Focus on the breath as it calms and soothes the nervous system...turning off the worry switches in your body.
• Smile...practice smiling in times of adversity. Smiling is not just a social expression it is an internal soothing mechanism.  Smiling helps us to release dopamine and other feel good emotions that will soothe and ease us away from worry. Put on a big goofy smile when you catch yourself worrying and see what happens.
• Live life deeply.  What does Hanh mean by living life deeply? I assume he means to experience life not just in our minds and at the direction of our superficial egos but to live it from the state of  awareness that is within. Beneath the circumstances or situations, beneath all that mind stuff and beneath the worry is Life.  Be mindful of that awareness and 'experience' Life instead of just getting through one life situation after another. There is a big difference. Live Life deeply!

We should be able to enjoy the wonders of life in us and everywhere around us.  The whispers of rustling pine boughs.  Flowers blooming.  The beautiful blue sky.  Fluffy white clouds.  The smile of a neighbor.  Each of these is a small miracle that has the capacity to nourish and heal us. They're there for us right now.  The question is: are we there for them?  If we are constantly running around, if our mind is caught up in endless planning and worrying, it's as if all these wonders don't even exist. -Thich Nhat Hanh, peace is every breath, page 79



 

Be there for those wonders. The worry switch will be flicked off, maybe even permanently,  by the simple experience of being there, living life deeply.

 

References

 

goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8002976-worrying-does-not-accomplish-anything-even-if-you-worry-twenty

 

Thich Nhat Hanh (2011) peace is every breath. New York: Harper One

Breeze: Opening the Window of Form

Why should I perceive  a thousand forms in what remains as one?  Why should I give this one a thousand names, when only one suffices?
-ACIM-W-262:1:4-5

It is funny how this works for me.  I will get to a lesson in A Course and the words will sink in a bit.  Then all of a sudden I seem to come across the same message everywhere while I am contemplating the lesson. No escaping the learning, I guess.  The Universal teacher is determined that I pass this course. :)

A Tolle Coincidence

Speaking of the body and the Oneness that unites all things, Eckhart Tolle's video seemed to pop into my life echoing what I am presently reading in A Course. He speaks to this Universal Presence that exists within the 'thousand forms' that seems to define us all as individuals.  We get hung up on the body/bodies but the body is merely a vehicle to house this Presence. 

Breezes Through Open Windows

Tolle, in the video, describes how people will often try to get physically closer to him because they feel so much peace coming from him that in turn makes them feel more peaceful. He described what they felt coming from him as ' breeze' because the window of his body and mind is opened...so the breeze flows easily  through.  Everyone, he said. Wants to be close to the breeze.  He then said that they too have the breeze flowing in them or else they would not even recognize the breeze coming from him.  His open window leads to them opening their own so their breeze can flow through comforting others as well.  Thus is the nature of true teaching and learning.

When we look into the eyes of a loved one...we may also sense this essence, this breeze.  A peace and love may seem to be coming from the other person that makes us feel peaceful and loved.  What we don't realize is that it is not the form that makes us feel peaceful...it is the presence that is the peace and love they emanate, that is in us. 

Beyond Connection

What we are feeling is not just 'a connection' but a Oneness that goes beyond connection. They are not just like us...they are us. The same presence in them is in us.  Their transparency is reflecting who we are!   What we are actually feeling is the peace and love in us. What we are experiencing is the presence that is in us.  What we may someday realize is that there really is nothing 'outside' of us.

So what is this Oneness?  A Course calls it God the Father's Love; Eckhart Tolle refers to is as spacious presence, the Buddhists call it Truth.  It is referred to as Source, the Universal flow of energy, Life, consciousness and in so many other ways.  Could it be that They are all the same thing unifying all of us?

For he is part of me and I of him, and we are part of You Who are our Source, eternally united in Your Love.-ACIM-W-262:1:8

The point is we are not separated by body lines or anything in this physical world.  Something much deeper and much more real than flesh and bone is unifying us. What would the world be like if we all realized that truth?

Nobody is more divine, closer to the Source, to God than you. The only difference, maybe, is that you don't know how close you are.
-Eckhart Tolle

Hmmm! Food for thought.

All is well in my world.

References

ACIM

Video: Namaste Publishing  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zcurl7QUCw

Do not affirm or defend your form identity.
-Eckhart Tolle

Tolle echoes what A Course says about the body living in this world of form.  Identifying with form is nonsense because form is impermanent.  Yet we do so much, don't we, to affirm who we are based on the ideologies of the physical world?  We identify with our bodies, with what we own, where we live, what we do. and we will go so far as to defend or even attack (sometimes kill) to preserve this identity, won't we?

The Dali Llama, as well as all Buddhist sages, teaches "Nothing is permanent." We will lose the things we worked so hard to gain, we will lose our possessions, our things, our social recognition,...and we will lose our youth, our health and our physical bodies eventually.  Identifying with this world will only bring pain and suffering (Dukkha)

Nothing of this physical world will last so why do we identify with it?  We fail to realize that we are so much more than this body.  Eckhart Tolle reminds us,

"At the heart of you, and at the heart of the universe, which is the same thing there is a timeless essence.  Yes there is a temporal you[a physical you; a body] ...and there is a nonphysical being, a higher self and then there is the transcendent dimension."

Why limit ourselves to the temporal when are so much more? Why suffer when we can embrace our beingness?  Why stay stuck in this limited and painful dimension when we can transcend it by being fully present and alive?  We can be transparent allowing this timeless presence to shine through or we can be fearful, hiding it behind imagined borders that need defending.

The thing is this presence we hide away in separate  body forms is not separate...It does not belong to me...and it does not belong to you.  It is something that can not be owned or possessed nor can it be separated by body lines. It is everything and everyone.  You are this presence; I am this presence.  How then  can it be attained, contained  and subject to loss?

Bodies do not need protection from other bodies.  These lines can not hold back who we really are.  Though it appears we are separated by flesh, we are not separated by presence.  Presence is Love. Exchange fear for Love and see this higher Self shine through. 

Love your neighbour as yourself because you know your neighbor is yourself.-Tolle

All is well.

References

Namaste publishing (2001)Eckhart Tolle Omega 6.  Retrieved https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zcurl7QUCw

Safety or Love?

You will identify with what you think will make you safe.
-ACIM-W-5.What is the Body?

Do you agree with that?

Do we humans tend to identify with whatever will make us safe?

Do we identify with certain countries with specific borders because we feel the border will keep us safe from other countries?

Within those countries do we stick with specific groups, political affiliations, races, genders, or religions for protection? Do we fear we will be at the mercy of every danger (including isolation) if we don't? 

Do we stick to ideologies and beliefs because they somehow offer comfort and security?  Do we fear that we will be reduced to nothing if we don't?  We will lose who we are?

Do we Identify with the body?

Do we identify with the body because we assume it somehow keeps us safe? Do we see the skin that surrounds us, (which is often called the first line of defense in the Anatomy world), a protective border between us and everything else?

Do we revere allopathic medicine and all its ideologies because we  assume it will keep our bodies safe?  Do we fear our bodies will disintegrate and get diseased or fall a part if we don't? Therefore so will we?

Do we buy all the gadgets that keep the body safe: safety restraints, locks, alarms, immunizations, armed weapons etc,  because we identify with a belief system that says the body is always at risk and we are the body so we are  always at risk?

Do we identify with the notion that the bodies we have determine if we are victors or prey? Murderers or victims? Dead or alive?

Do we see ourselves as these piles of flesh and only that? 

No wonder why we are afraid!

Do we live in fear?

Are our identifications, the ideas we have of ourselves, generated by fear? Seriously...is that the case?Is it fear that drives the body into its pursuits or is it  love?

Is it love that puts up fences and walls, that attacks or defends, that separates and isolates?  Of course not.  It is fear.  The body we identify with is used  by fear, is motivated by fear and is driven by fear. Why? Because we identify with ego's purpose for the body and not what it was truly meant for. We identify with lies.

Made to be fearful, must the body serve the purpose given it.  But we can change the purpose that the body will obey by changing what we think that it is for. ACIM-W-5. What is the Body?: 3:4-5

Is there another way?

The body will do what we ask of it...Its purpose is whatever  we assume it to be for.  If we listen to the ego lies  and see it as vehicle of separation, we will live in fear.  If, however, we see it for what it is really for...a vehicle of Love... we will no longer be imprisoned by it, we will no longer live in fear.

Your safety lies in truth, and not in lies.  Love is your safety.  Fear does not exists.  Identify with love, and you are safe.  Identify with love, and you are home.  Identify with love and find your Self. ACIM-W-5. What is the Body?: 5:3-8

All is well in my world.

Worrying about problems?

If you can solve your problem, then what is the need for worrying?  If you cannot solve it, what is the use of worrying?
-Shantideva (8th century Indian Buddhist scholar) (https://www.quotes.net/quote/21508)


Do you have a tendency to worry?

 I know that in my own personal life I still have a tendency to worry.  No matter how evolved I become or how I realize the senseless nature of it...I still worry.  Someone once tried to console me by telling me that it was a mothers 'perogative ' to worry.  I think it is a mother's curse to do so.  :)

Worry as far as I am concerned...is a senseless and damaging emotion to get caught up in.

Do you know where the word comes from? 

Worry comes from the word 'wirion'.  In the 14th century, that word translated to refer to what a wild animal might do to a human being: bite, tear into the throat thusly strangling or choking.  Pretty gruesome eh?  The German translation of its cousin 'wurgon', meant to strangle. Worry, then, comes,from a very violent connotation.  Its literal meaning has tamed down quite a bit over the centuries but it still is a nasty word with a nasty experience to offer.

As dramatic as the origin of the word is...it carries some subtle references into our understanding of the word and the world today.

'Worry' is pretty violent on the mind, isn't it?  Like a wild animal out of control and let loose by ego it can bite into our psyches ripping away peace and strangling our life energy away, can't it?  It can literally leave one fighting for breath or choking on a future anticipation of negative outcome.

Worry isn't nice!

Does it serve a purpose?  For the ego it does...keeps us out of the present moment and focused on some disaster in the probable  future. It keeps us where ego wants us...in our minds.

To the real Self...it serves no purpose.  No amount of worry has the power to change the outcome of an event.

But that is why we tend to worry, isn't it?  We have this idea that it will make things right for us...if we worry hard enough somehow we will stop something bad from happening.  How bizarre is that.?

Worry serves the ego by wasting a valuable connection to the moment...it does no good to Self.

Still, we worry.

I love the sage advice shared by the Dali Llama in the link listed below...and from an 8 th century Buddhist monk who truly understood the senseless nature of worry. If we can solve a so called 'problem' or change what appears to be a problematic situation, we do not need to worry, do we?  If we can't change it with worry, why waste time worrying? 

Watch the eyes and smile on the Dali Llama as he speaks...a man who lost so much yet remains so peaceful and calm.  Does he look worried?

Maybe if we truly get it...that worry is senseless...we will be more likely to say to ego when it sends it our way..."No thanks!" or better still maybe we will be able to see the playful pup within the beast and tame it and play with it before we send it home.

All is well in my world.

References

Online Etymology Dictionary: worry https://www.etymonline.com/word/worry

The Positive Encourager https://www.thepositiveencourager.global/the-dalai-lama-being-calm-in-the-face-of-adversity/

Jane Goodall's Forest

From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I derived strength in moments of sadness and fear. That's what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the Forest.

-Jane Goodall (https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/jane_goodall)

I watched the documentary on Netflix last evening called "Jane". What an amazing film and what an amazing human being. For a British  woman of 'gentle class' to forge off into the jungles of Africa in the 1950's was an extraordinary thing by itself but to accomplish what she did was even more so.  To see how she 'fit in 'there was the most awe inspiring thing for me though.  It was like she was 'home' living a life long dream she manifested. She lived fully!  And with great faith, compassion, and patience she exuded.  

Like me, she seemed to find such peace amongst animals and embraced her solitude just as much as she embraced nature.  All pics of her in the footage showed this woman with the most eloquent peaceful calm. She seemed to be patiently watching, observing life and so in the moment! She was very spiritual. It filled me with a certain longing, maybe, for what she had?

I often thought about doing something like that...devoting my life to animals or people who needed me or what I had to offer.  I secretly longed/long to be surrounded by nature and free of all these social scripts this ego based society demands of us.  I am somewhat 'uncomfortable' and 'out of place' in this world. How freeing and life fulfilling it would be to live like she did?  I long for Jane Goodall's "Forest".

What I realize, however, is that the forest is different for everybody. It doesn't have to be in Gombe...it can be in your very home.  The populations we seek to understand, learn from and help are sometimes Chimpanzees, sometimes human beings and sometimes something else. And we can all be a little more like she without going anywhere. This peace she seemed to express was in her anyway...she brought it with her to Africa...that is why, maybe, she was able to realize her dream...because she exuded this peaceful calm. She had faith.

Anyway...I admire this woman (from what was shared in this documentary).  I admire what she has done for the planet. I admire the way she lived/lives. Maybe there is something to learn from it that goes beyond the understanding of the similarities between Chimpanzee and human social behaviours. Maybe Jane Goodall's story  could teach us all how to live.

All is well.

References

"Jane"(2017)...on Netflix (sorry...not appropriate citation)

.

Alignment with Grace

Shall we continue to allow God's grace to shine in unawareness, while the toys and trinkets of the world are sought instead?
-ACIM-W-258:1:3

Always the Philosopher


Hmm!  Back at it with my philosophizing and my attempting to put into words and mental concepts all I am learning and feeling.  I mean I can put the intellectually received stuff into some form of understandable word form but the 'experience'...man that is too overwhelming to even describe.  :)

I wake up at night in a sweat...thinking about all the worldly things I appear to have on my plate...literally worried sick about my kids, feeling every bump and bruise as if it were my own and pulled by  this maternal drive to 'kiss it all better". The financial situation is another story all together and on top of that I am forced to listen to my body moan and complain about what I put it through that day.  At those moments I am very much "in the world'...and not aware of God's grace.

The Asking

I have  the same questions  going through my mind as  I lay awake.  "Why?  And how do I end it...how do I find peace in it?  How do I find peace so I don't go completely bonkers or get sicker?

I no longer ask the Universe to give me better situations, to change the circumstances of my life, to place a big bag of money on my lap or to give me all the answers that will make my kids happy and healthy...I now know that isn't the answer to any of this Dukka I (my little I)  am experiencing. I know it isn't the answer to anything.  Nothing in this world holds the answer.  No toys or trinkets sought after will ever be enough.

I ask for one thing.  I ask for the freedom that will come in awareness of how to find and maintain peace in my life so I can shine it on the world. In not so many words or visualizations... I ask for awareness of God's grace. The Grace is there...it has never left me...but I know that somehow I am not aligned with it...only because I have closed my eyes to it.  Only because I forgot who I was.  I am as Wayne Dyer used to say, "A glass of God" when God is the ocean.  I want to be poured back into the ocean.  There I will find my balance and the peace I long for.  I will also be able to create better situations for myself and the ones I love but that is just an added perk.

Wayne Dyer also speaks to this balance and alignment with God's grace in this little video snippet I cam across this morning:
If you want to be in balance, 'be' in balance, then your habits have to start matching up with your desires in everything...in everything that  you do.  And it is just a simple matter of deciding to do it....in all of your thoughts, any thought that is not aligned.

Hmm!  Back to changing our thoughts and changing our reality .  Change the thoughts from those that lead us into a fruitless seeking in the physical world for toys and trinkets and back to thoughts of who we really are. Change the thoughts that lead us away from God back to ones that remind us of the grace that is always there.

What could we seek but our Identity. ACIM-W-258:2:4

  It is also funny to realize how I am coping now in this stage of my life.  When things get tough I no longer rush out 'to do', I am not compelled to analyze and fix, I don't complain (well at least not as much as I used to lol), I don't drink or do drugs, ....I just come here.  Isn't that something?  I do not know why but I am drawn here. Putting my words down here  seems to make it all okay. I seem to find what I am looking for here. Through this 'inspired action' I find lovely glimpses of Self and peace.

All is well in my world.



References:

ACIM (of course)

This Wayne Dyer video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAhUUHnq2Ok

On Being Honest and Authentic

The more honest and authentic we are, the more deeply we go into the mystery of our own being...
- Adyashanti (https://quotefancy.com/quote/1710637/Adyashanti-The-more-honest-and-authentic-we-are-the-more-deeply-we-go-into-the-mystery-of)

Sometimes I read what I write and I say to myself, "Man!  Is that really me?  Can't be.  I don't write like that...I don't talk like that...I don't think like that...at least not out loud or in public, do I?  That's not like me to pray in front of others or to share such soul intimate stuff, is it? "

And for a moment...just a moment I will find myself caring what people think...worried about how it will make 'me' look.  I slip back into ego and its need to preserve this 'idea of me' I and the world created. This idea of me does not yet embrace the whole of me or the real authentic me and it is quite sure the world won't either...it is superficial like most egos. So I slip back into lower end thinking & feeling  and wonder if I said too much, exposed too much. I doubt.

Is it safe to be this honest?

Part of me wants to go back and take every intimate piece off the site and tuck it away somewhere in the sock drawer of 'saved drafts'. This same ego part of me, that also likes to share the written word,  will then justify itself..."Well no one reads this anyway... it really isn't public.  So it is safe to write and speak like this here but nowhere else okay? Get it out of your system!"

Then I realize that this is all ego talking. I see how dependent on 'ideas of me' the ego is.  How it backs the little me and not the 'deeper I' that so wants to come out.  The ego wants and needs that sense of belonging it gets from other egos so it is afraid to step on toes or alienate itself by being different.  The deeper I doesn't need it.  The deeper I needs to express Itself fully and honestly...otherwise it feels all contracted up.

The deeper I wrote that yesterday and meant every word of it.  It wants Its freedom from the prison of 'little me's' mind. It wants to release others too. In order to do that I have to be honest don't I? I have to be willing to risk rejection and scorn, ridicule and contempt.  "I have to me!' lol

Man!  I just want a little peace in my life. I am so tired of experiencing life as 'a victim of circumstances' and being controlled by the thoughts in my head.  I want to get out of that prison!  Don't you? 

I assume you want to be happy too...that you want peace too. (Even if you are not consciously aware of that need at this point lol). Don't you want to go home to that mental space where all is calm and peaceful no matter what is going on around It?

Anyway...I am no expert, no Guru, no enlightened master...just another person seeing the light through the crack and squeezing my way through it.  If I get through...it would only be the human thing to do to go back and show others the way through too, wouldn't it?

That is what this blog is all about, I guess.  It is what I am about now too.  Weird when I think about it but true. If I am truly honest with myself and others, this is where I am at in my life, like it or not.

All is well in my world.

Wings of Freedom

 

I bow my head in reverence for the Life

that is breathed through me

with every imperfect breath I take

and I ask but for one thing today….

Freedom.

 

I ask that the chains that hold me down

to this world I created in my weary mind…

 be unshackled.

I long to hear

the sound of heavy, rusty thoughts falling away

from exhausted  limbs that

 have  been restrained for much too long,

 

I pray for awareness of the strength

that exists inside me

so that I can stand on these trembling appendages

and stretch my being toward the light

that pours in trickles from my prison window.

Allow it to dry the open sores on my wrists

Allow it to heal my flesh,

Allow it to heal this that hides

what I am.

 

Let me shake off the heavy dust of my imprisonment

so that these limbs can become

 

what they were always meant to be

 …. wings

of glorious colour and power.

Let me feel them stretch and flutter

as they realize their Source.

Let them  carry this version I call 'me'

 

through this tiny  window of awakening

and into the bright world of Your abundant Light

And Your eternal Love.

 

 

 

Then give me the key, I plea

so that I can slip through the small cracks

that lead into the dreary cells of others,

offering hope,

glimpses of colour and light

and eventually freedom.

Let me help to release

 

the world from its prison

Father

as my brother will do for me.

 

Set me free, I pray.

 

-Dale-Lyn, September, 2018

Getting Beyond Egoic Identification

Can you sense the very presence that is the essence of who you are? And it has no form...it is just spacious awareness. And that is an amazing thing...to know your Self as spacious awareness.  That frees you from believing that your personal history is who you are.  
-Eckhart Tolle

In this wonderful lecture/sat sang...Eckhart Tolle describes many steps that can lead us away from ego identification to the Self...in the moment/the now. Though he may not have intended to use steps...I heard several steps and this is what I heard.  (Yep...I heard some alliteration...I heard it in "a"s lol):

1.  Be Aware: Just stop what you are doing and look around you.
2. Acknowledge what you are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or touching.
3. Allow the moment to be what it is.
4. Appreciate it...appreciate the changes, the beauty or the contrast
5. Ask: Is this what I am sensing all there is of this moment/? This now?
6. Slip a bit away from sensual perception to the alert presence beneath it.
7. Revel in the aliveness that can be experienced without these superficial senses ( for example: just close your eyes and feel the life in your hands, in your feet, in your entire body)
8. Shift your attention more and more away from the superficial to what lay beneath it
9. Use this as an anchor to hold you in presence when ego sends its thoughts your way to pull you from this alert presence.  (And it will)
10. Answer the question: Who or what is aware of my awareness?
11. Accept the spaciousness between the thoughts
12. Affirm that this is who and what you are: Spacious awareness aware of Itself.

Well that is what I got from it.  All is well in my world!

 

Not that we are old goats lol...I chose this picture and shot it because when this goat  looked at me it was like he/she knew who he was.  It kind of  looks like he is smiling with that confidence, doesn't it?

 

References:

Lion Motivation  (March, 2018) Eckhart Tolle- The Journey into Now. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR_MY_Oy8Uw

(Please note: Since this did not come from the Eckhart Tolle TV site...I am not sure if I am citing it correctly or if I even have the right to use it here? At the same time...I need to cite where I got my information. No offense intended.)

Stepping Off the Roller Coaster

You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.- Eckhart Tolle (Stillness Speaks)


Are you getting what I have been trying to communicate in the last 4-5 blog entries?  More importantly, am I getting it lol?

The whole premise behind all this talk about mind, ego thoughts and complaining as well as effortless effort is that we really are not what we think or what we do, are we?  The whole premise behind everything I write lately is that we are not who we think we are. 

We have confused ourselves (or the Self) with ideas we have of ourselves. These ideas are conditioned in us, taught by well meaning others at an early age, and generated from centuries of ego confusion. We have come up with 'ideas' and 'beliefs ' about who we are that get stored in our subconscious mind as a pseudo truth we habitually act upon.

Following the crowd that subscribes to these beliefs, we jump up onto a roller coaster that takes us up and down and all around...exciting us for a bit but terrifying us for most of the ride.  Even in those rare moments of calm when we can sigh a breath of relief we have memories of what we left behind and  anticipate the next up and the next down. So we cling with all our might to whatever ego tells us we have to hold on to. There is little peace on this ride, is there?

The thing is...it is all in our minds!

Within us, however, despite all the screaming and the ups and downs is also this quiet yearning for peace...for stillness...for more.  Even though ego has us strapped in pretty tight...we somehow know that this is just a ride we can get off of anytime.

Who we really are is on the ground beyond the mental ride, beyond the ego...beyond all the thinking that steers us from It.

What awaits us on the ground is peace, stability,  joy.... Love. Our Father, God, Life, the Universe...(however you perceive the Divine Nature) calls us from the ground, waits for us to get off and to come home.

Step off the ride and spend the day with Your Father; Your Self in perfect peace.


                  This day I choose to spend in perfect peace. -ACIM-W-255

All is well in my world!

Greater than Your Mind: Wisdom from Mooji

When  you start to be free you will begin to see your mind is not kind....

The mind is going to come and try to confuse you and to sabotage this opportunity for Self discovery.

 

Don't let the mind give you a little bit-here and there.  It has you on rations.

You are too confused.  You are living like you are your mind.  You are not your mind!

Your life is greater than your mind.

You can be without your mind but your mind can not be without you.


You have to find something that is not coming and going.  That which is aware of the change and is not identified with it.  That one.  Find out this one.  This one is free.

 This is the power of an awakened being. Just their awareness is touching something inside you. They inspire your being to open up its wings inside you. And that is called awakening to presence.

All is well....


Reference

Mooji (March, 2015) You are here to Win Yourself Back. Mooji TV Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLz3w98moCg

Handling the Ego Thoughts

Today we let no ego thoughts direct our words or actions. When such thoughts occur, we quietly step back and look at them, and then we let them go. We do not want what they would bring with them.  And so we do not choose to keep them.
ACIM-W-254: 2:1-4

Wow!  That is the secret isn't it?  We just need to let the ego thoughts pass by without any identification or clinging to them.  We do not need to set up barriers of resistance, we do not need to deny them or struggle against them.  We just need to let them pass by.

Ego can be tricky...it manipulates and draws us in. It pretends to be on our side and it pretends to be us. So how do we recognize the ego thoughts so we can let them go?

You know they are ego thoughts when:

• They are full of judgment determining what is right or wrong, good or bad
• They  point outward for happiness...they tell you that this 'thing' outside you is what you need to be happy
• They pull you from the moment into the past or future
• They have familiar voices...like those of people you may  have known
• They point outward for blame... they tell you you  are a victim to something or someone. "It's not your fault!  It's theirs!"
• They are often stamped with "Urgent!  Respond Immediately!!!"
• They encourage you to protect yourself with defenses or to attack someone or something else for your own protection
• They are full of "I", "me" and "mine"
• They tell you how important it is to be 'right'
• They convince you you know more than you do
• They either redeem or shame
• They tell you you are 'special' or not 'special enough'
• They tell you in order to be 'special' you need to love and be loved by a 'special' few in 'special' relationships
• They are unpredictable and fickle...leaving you confused and 'unstable'...one moment happy, the next moment not
• They react to life circumstances
• They like to be shared with as many people as possible.  They want to be heard.
• They are full of drama and story
• They are full of complaint and grievance
• They snicker at any idea of you or others  being more than a mind or a body
• They are unkind to you or others
• They are numerous and repetitive
• They have a tendency to be negative
• They often push us to do, to numb
• They make promises of how things will be better 'when'
• They are determined and persistent
• They want to control you and others
• They are made of "should', "Gotta', 'Have-to", 'must'
• They are also made up of 'can't', 'always', 'never' and 'not good enough'
• They pretend to have power over you making you feel like you are 'stuck' and powerless to change them.
• They depend on your five senses to validate them
• They multiple quickly and spread malignantly
• They do not leave you peaceful for long, if at all.

So what do you do when you recognize a thought entering your mind as an ego thought?

• Still yourself
• Take a deep breath and focus on that breath 
• Simply call each out "Oh you are one of those ego thoughts  trying to pull me in again."
• Then  smile and say, "No thanks!  I don't want what you have to offer."
• Step back and let them pass by.
• Once they are subdued...your mind will quiet tremendously.
• Spend more time in silence...hearing what you really need to hear.

Let every voice but God's be still in me. -ACIM-W-254

All is well!

Catch Yourself Complaining

See if you can catch yourself complaining in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, even the weather.  To complain is always non acceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out you are in your power.  So change the situation by taking action or speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it.  All else is madness. -Eckhart Tolle (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/969469-see-if-you-can-catch-yourself-complaining-in-either-speech)

All Else is Madness!

Finally...my daughter 'gets it!' She finally sees that focusing on all the negatives of her situation, complaining about it to herself and others...listening to ego tell her she is trapped in it...is simply madness.  It only makes her feel worse. 

After what she called a "horrible week" she finally accepts the fact that if she wants to feel better she has to think better and speak better about her situation. She sees that though things are not the way she would like them to be, they are what they are.  Complaining about them does more harm than good. Accepting them and trying to make the best of it is her next goal.

Wow! What a wonderful realization for an 18 year old to make. What a game changer!

The Madness of Complaining

When we find ourselves in unfavorable life situations we need to realize that the life situation only causes a bit of the discomfort we are experiencing,  if any.  Our reaction to it is responsible for most of our suffering. 

It is in our heads that we suffer.  We focus and think about all the negative things we got going on around us and we create this 'unconscious negative charge' that harms us much more than the situation could.  We voice it out loud...not to make change (that's different...that's proactive) ...but to complain and we sink down into the muck of our perception.

So what do we do?

• Catch yourself complaining. Listen to yourself explain the situation to someone else or catch the thoughts you are allowing to fester in your own mind. 
• Know the difference between complaining and trying to speak out and express in order to make change.  When it is a complaint...you will hear yourself listing a thousand reasons why you are stuck in the situation you are in and why any of the offered or self thought resolutions to your situation won't work.  When in a complaining frenzy, we actually resist help or any other suggestion to think differently.  When we express and speak out to make change, however...we are open to resolution and a different way of looking at the situation.
• Know that the complaint is a resistance to what is...The complaining provides a struggle that requires a lot of effort and energy and takes you absolutely no where but down!
• Accept the situation for what is...doesn't mean you have to like it; doesn't mean you have to stay in it.  Just accept it.
• Listen to your heart and the wisdom it provides
• Now make your choice: You have three choices...you can walk away from the situation; you can speak up against it or actively change it or you can just accept it for what it is and make the best of it.  The thing is you have the power to choose what you want to do!

All else is madness!

Oh another little trick you can try.  Try smiling a big goofy smile as you complain to yourself or other people.  You will see that it is almost next to impossible to do so without feeling a little less like complaining.  :)

All is well in my world.

Effortless Effort

If effort is needed by all means make some effort.  Or as my teacher used to say, 'effortless effort.'  Just don't mistake effort for struggle, for struggle is simply wasted effort.... The call of the heart never confines itself to the mind's ideas of whether effort is necessary or not. It follows the impulse  of silent intuition which is so much better aligned with what the moment dictates.-Adyashanti (https://www.facebook.com/adyashanti.org/posts/%E2%80%9Cif-effort-is-needed-then/479382369093604/)

What type of person are you: one who puts effort into Life or one who doesn't?

Do you feel the pressure to get things done?  Are you constantly planning what to do next?  Are you living by a mile long to do list?  Do you have your head down, your tongue out as you clench your jaws in determination to fix things, do, accomplish?  Do you subscribe to the axioms, "Don't pain no gain!" or "Just do it!" Do you believe pushing with   determined effort is the only way to have a meaningful life?

Or

Are you a couch potato...laying back with your feet up as you wait for Life to drop all its bounty on your lap? Does  your misconstrued version of "The Secret" and other teachings on manifesting fill you with relief..."Man...I don't have to do anything ...I just have to put my wishes out there and sit back with my arms open. I will get what I need."

Both and Neither

I often wondered which one of the above categories  I fell into.  I am often in the top description. When I say I am going to do something...I go all out without a break usually until it is done.  I work hard...I put my nose to the grind stone and regardless of symptoms I will do whatever I can to finish what I start.  This mind set has often got me into trouble.  I am great to have on a project or team...that is until I start collapsing all over the place and end up good to no one?

I also wonder if I belong to the second description. There are some things I do little of now...and will literally close my eyes to.  Housework. Blah!  It seems like just a repeated  waste of precious energy.  And now that I have stepped away from any semblance of being a productive member of society ...I feel very much like a "lazy"  couch potato at times.

I thought I was both a person who believed effort was the way to achieve and at the same time someone who was lazy and waiting for the universe to provide.  The thing is I am both...or neither...I am somewhere in between.  I am someone who subscribes to the idea of effortless effort. 

Effortless Effort

Effortless effort, according to many of the masters, is not a lack of action nor is it a struggle to do.   It does not require thoughts of action that are  loaded with should, have-tos and must, or "gotta get this done." It does not create worried tension over what to do next.  It is not  a doing that drains precious energy.

Effortless effort is action that is simply inspired action.  Action that stems from Grace and is filled with ease. Rather than being  born of conditioned beliefs and societal pressure to conform, it comes from a silent space within where all Wisdom flourishes.

I like to be doing that that feels right to the heart and to the soul...that serves me and the world in some way...that allows me to feel authentic and true. And I like to be still, and quiet in the moment.  I am learning to listen when I am still to the quiet voice of inspiration that leads me to certain action.  I prefer not to struggle or to waste any of the energy I have left...it is like gold to me. I  do not want to "waste my effort" any longer.

So I do but I do what flows from me with ease.  I do what brings joy and peace to me and the people I love.  I do what my heart calls me to do and I try to put struggle and  my minds ideas of what to do aside.

I want my life to be full of effortless effort.  What about you?

All is well in my world.

Take Me Home

You are the destination and the Journey.
-Mooji

Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I’ll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I’m like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.
Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.

This poetry. I never know what I’m going to say.
I don’t plan it.
When I’m outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

 

By Rumi

(https://www.thehouseofyoga.com/magazine/whoever-brought-me-here-will-have-take-me-home-rumi)