No Effort Required

No effort is required for awareness to know Itself. In fact, any effort would take it away from Itself.
Rupert Spira, Being Aware of Being Aware, pg. 24

I am going to throw a few words and phrases at you:

• Disorder
• Chaos
• Entropy
• Apoptosis
• Decay
• Disintegrate
• Death
• Dark Night of the Soul

Yucky, right?

You might react to each of these words in a common way.  You might dislike them.  Find them to be unpleasant.  Label them as negative and determine them to be something that should be avoided. Am I right?  None of these words are something that you would actively  seek in a worldly experience are they?

What if I told you that all had something in common?  These words that represent certain experiences are absolutely necessary in some form or another for your growth, your transformation, and your evolution. Do you buy into that? If so do  these words still ring with the same negative connotation then?

Let me remind you, first of all...that words are just pointers...leading to an experience beyond the image or concept the word evokes.  But in order to understand that experience from the limited mind we will have to understand the words the mind limits experience to.

Disorder, Chaos

When we think of these words we might think of a mess, something horrid beyond our control.  We might imagine a disaster of some kind with things all blown out of order, scattering this way and that in random fashion.  We might think of something we have no control over taking over our experience.  This can lead to feelings of repulsion, fear or even panic.  Needing to feel in control, safe within our little comfort zones, we may  assume it is important to avoid disorder and chaos at all costs.

Yet chaos is unavoidable. Crazy mixed up things happen around us and to us  all the  time.

Chaos In Extreme Forms:

Our present global situation reflects chaos. Right now we are in the middle of a pandemic....and the beginning of a subsequent economic crisis.  The ultimate form of chaos that can occur in the  human mind  also ran amuck in a neighboring province a few weekends ago leading to the violent destruction of life and complete disequilibrium.

Disorder  in Lesser Forms:

Looking around my house I see what is happening to my "actual" comfort zone.  It is a mess.  If I do not put great effort into maintaining some form of order...it looks the way it does now.  The cats  shed their fur and it lands on the furniture. The dogs track their muddy paws all over the place and if I don't chase them around the house with a mop...their is disorder on my floors.  People come in and drop their shoes and outer wear at the door...disorder. If I don't close all the books I have open on my desk and around me...there is more disorder.

Chaos and Disorder Are Inevitable

Sh*& happens! Even terrible, terrible sh*& and there is little to nothing we can do stop it or control it.  We can exert a great deal of energy into trying to prevent it but if we are lax in that energy even a tiny bit...chaos and disorder will prevail.  Why?  Because it is the natural law for things to return to chaos.


Say what crazy lady?

Entropy: the Natural Law of Chaos

I want to introduce you to another word:   Entropy. Entropy is disorder and chaos. According to Merriam-Webster, Entropy is the degradation of matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity....a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder. It is also a very natural and necessary component in thermodynamics.  It is the natural law of things, then,  to return to chaos and it requires energy expenditure to resist that chaos or disorder.

We do not "like" chaos and disorder and tend to put it on our "things to avoid " list.  We work real hard to create comfort zones that will protect us from it.  We seek to make changes in our external world that will limit or push away chaos and disorder.  We put a great deal of energy into attempting to control the  world "out there" so  it doesn't interfere with the world inside our comfort zones. We depend on our worlds having order so we have a sense of order inside. Push chaos and disorder away so we can be peaceful and happy.

How is that working for you? are you able to stop the  world from doing the crazy things it does?  How exhausted are you from trying to build better comfort zones and pushing any idea of chaos and disorder away from you? Are you  completely successful in keeping order in your comfort zone?

  And what about your physical body?  If you see yourself as a physical body you might be doing all you can to prevent its disintegration from illness or age.  You might be fearfully and chronically trying to prevent its death. How is that working for you?

Apoptosis, Decay and Disintegration

Can you prevent aging?  I assure you ...you can't. I hate to tell you this but your body is constantly changing, disintegrating and gulp...dying.  I am going to introduce another word to you Apoptosis. Right now, as you read this, you have billions of cells in your body dying and they will continue to do so every hour.  This is Apoptosis, a natural and "orderly" planned death of cells to balance the new cells being created in cell division .  Your body is constantly disintegrating, decaying and dying. As is the natural law.

Look around you... all things are doing the same.  My cat is shedding hair no longer needed.  She does not have the same coat she had last year...it is completely different. The trees are just starting to bud, the  buds will die off to form blossoms, these blossoms will die off to form fruit and that fruit will die off to release seed. Rodents are dying in my yard, (unfortunately partly due to my cat who will not keep a bell colour on) their bodies will, with the help of billions of bacteria and other microorganisms, disintegrate and decay into the earth  and that will enrich the soil with wonderful nutrients for things to grow. The world is in a constant state of dying and renewing.  It is a state of evolution. As are you.

So it all looks so random and chaotic...all of that stuff in our outer experience.  But it really isn't.  It is following a very natural law and this natural law was devised by Something that sees and knows the order in it, even if we can't. It helps us to shed what we do not need to gain the awareness of  what we do.

Death and the Dark Night of the Soul

This brings me to the last two concepts on that list I threw at you. When we define death...we need to be good and sure we are referring only to physical matter.  All the laws I spoke of so far deal only with physical matter...with form, our objective experience and I guess we can include in there ...our mental constructs, thoughts and feelings. Those are the things subject to change, disorder, chaos, entropy, apoptosis, decay, disintegration and death. They are all just objective experience.

Who we really are and what is  truly important, however, is exempt from these laws.

The Dark Night of the Soul occurs when we experience the uncomfortable transformation prior to getting beyond the focus of the physical world or understanding...when we begin to lose those parts of us that we do not need but have invested so heavily in ( things that helped us to build an identity of "little me") ...when we go through all this painful  change and chaos and disorder that we experience and come to realize that what we perceive to be losing was not serving us anyway...that a doorway is opening for us to walk through to a higher level of evolution.  Our transcending  requires change...requires some disorder and chaos, a loss of what we thought was real...so we can know what it is.

No Effort Required

The necessary death of transformation  is like the shedding of an outer shell so we can be with and Be...That which was always beneath that shell, beneath the chaos...unperturbed , unchanged or unaffected by any of it.  And that is awareness. It requires no effort...just a letting go , a falling into the natural order of things.

Awareness never experiences its own appearance or disappearance, its own beginning or ending, its own birth or death. (Spira, page 31)

All these words that seem like things we must avoid are actually pointers to our own evolution.

All is well.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entropy

Eckhart Tolle ( April 25, 2020) The Hidden Harmony Beneath Disorder and Chaos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsGSBybe31g

Spira, R. ( 2017) Being Aware of Being Aware. (The essence of Meditation Series) New Harbinger. Kindle Edition

On Offering Joy and Relieving Suffering

Offer Joy to one person in the morning, and relieve suffering of one person in the afternoon.
-Buddhist Teaching

Does   your to-do list or  your hourly calendar look like this: 9:15 am: offer joy; 1300h: relieve suffering? 

Knowing Why We Are Here

I am quite sure it doesn't but if I were to ask  what is your spiritual purpose here; what is it, do you think, God (or a higher power  you identify with) wants you to do with this life you have been given... many of us would say things like:  be good to others, love them, be kind, help out, etc.  Would we not?   Most of  us believe that we are meant to bring joy and service to others ...to ease the suffering of other humans and beings...do we not?   Is that not what we are taught in our religions, families, our schools and social institutions (to a lesser degree)? Do you not have that knowledge somewhere in the core of you? I am sure you do.

The Modern To-Do List

So how many things on your to-do list, your mental plan for this day are allotted to consciously bringing joy to others and relieving suffering? 

Hopefully you will have something on that list like, spend time playing with daughter, or serve supper at the local shelter.  But really ...is that something you allot enough priority to that it makes it on that list?

How many "other" things do you have on that list that do not bring joy to you or others, that do not relieve suffering...or may in fact...in some indirect way... lead to more suffering for others? Who are you serving with this to-do list?

Man...I am not trying to do the guilt thing. If that were the case, I would probably be more guilty than most.  I remember my days of to-do listing and how everything in my daily plans seemed to be about "getting things done", "work", being "productive".  If I had time...I would squeeze in something that brought joy to me or others or something that consciously helped to relieve suffering...but that was not my priority.  My priority was to do and to accomplish, to keep up with this fast stream of traffic in the busy world.  Is this not what the "to-do list" is all about!

Not What We Are About

It may be what the busy world we created is all about, and what the to-do list is all about but is it what we are all about? No, we know that.  We know that we are here to offer joy and relieve suffering in order to make the world a better place ...we know that... but somehow it became so easy to put other things ahead of it. 

We want these little separate beings we think we are, this little self-serving entity and all we closely identify with  to be happy and safe, free from the unpleasantry of the world. And there is nothing wrong with that aspiration.  So  we commit to working hard  to get there...someday.  So each thing we scribble down on the piece of paper today  is meant to help us get there some other day.  Each action we intend to pursue is just a means to an end. 

Stepping Over Today To Get To a Future Happiness

"If I get so many things checked off today", we tell ourselves, ..."then I will get that much  closer to getting to where I need to be in order to be happy". "Then, maybe", we will rationalize, "I will devote myself more to humanity and the world then.  For now I need to get ahead!"

So maybe we are not feeling joy and sharing joy as we do the things on that list but we are doing them  so we can feel joy and share joy in the future. Right?  Our intentions are probably good.

"I can't play with my five year old daughter now on this Saturday afternoon I was supposed to have off  because I have to handle this business call for work to earn what I need to earn, to create the best life for her in the future...so I can have more time to play with her then."

 And that is a perfectly acceptable pattern of rationalization in our world today.  Perfectly normal.  Normal ...yes...but is it getting us closer to what we really want...to be who we truly are which is a being who lives to bring joy and relieve suffering in this moment, which is the only time we have?

Do you think five year old Sally is thinking about the future when you tell her you have to put extra hours of work ahead of her now so you can have more time for her then? And will 25 year old Sally still want to play on the trampoline with you when you finally get and do all the things you need to bring joy to her? Or will she be inclined to tell you about how she suffered then and now because of  the absence of your presence during her formative years?

Oh man...that does sound like a guilt trip, doesn't it?   All I am saying is what I learned the hard way, that the time to offer joy is today.  The time to help to relieve suffering is today. These are the most important things to put on any list  and...it isn't about "doing".  It is about being. 

About Being Not Doing

Your natural state is joy, your natural state is compassion.  Tap into that state and you can't help but to offer joy or relieve suffering. It is who you are.  And this joy and peace and happiness you seek through all your ceaseless doing, a joy  that you assume can be found somewhere up there in the future...can be found now, in this moment, and you don't have to do anything.  You just have to be yourSelf.

What you offer Sally then is greater than any future  lifestyle or material purchase.You offer her joy and freedom from future suffering.  What you offer that homeless person with your smile, your hand reaching out, letting them know they are seen and not alone is what Mother Teresa would refer to as "the greatest gift."

By putting away our tendency to seek and do  to find  our peace, joy, happiness  "out there" in a time that will never come and by turning inward to where that peace, joy, happiness already is,  we give the  greatest gift.

By being truly present as our Self in this moment, the only time there is,  we show others a glimpse of That which made us and That which made them. That which made  all.

All is well.

The Natural State

Happiness is our essential nature, apparently eclipsed and obscured much of the time by the clamour of objective experience but never completely extinguished by it.
Rupert Spira, page 6

So I am about to share some learning that was gained from reading Being Aware of Being Aware by Rupert Spira. First of all, I am going to encourage you to read the book  yourself and again, to  take my interpretation and shared learning with a grain of salt.  This is the type of thing, I firmly believe, that has to resonate internally before it is accepted.

What the book offers is not necessarily new learning or the sharing of novel knowledge.  I have heard it all before in one way or another. I have  studied similar teachings, absorbed it from several previous teachers and have then regurgitated it all over the page here in one form another over the years.  It is not new learning. It is actually quite ancient.  This author, however, is able to teach it in such a way...it is like I am hearing it for the first time. It resonates!

So I would like to go through the ideas presented in this little book slowly and deliberately.

The first idea, I would like to touch on is that of our natural state.

Happiness and Peace Are Our Natural State

This notion that our natural state is one of peace and happiness is probably something many of us have a hard time accepting. We probably feel unease more than we feel peace, right? We would probably say that unease is our natural state and in order to improve upon that in anyway...we need to seek the things that will make us happy and avoid the things that will make us "more" miserable. Peace and happiness seem to be something out there and in order to experience them we have to work very hard to control, fix, manipulate the outside world so we can experience them.

We often carry with us, this malignant feeling of unease, do we not, whether it is always outwardly apparent or not? Happiness and peace are things we believe we earn after hard work.  Suffering is what we experience, more easily,  if we are not doing enough to bring happiness into our lives or to push the "nasty" things away.  In other words...suffering seems easy and natural; peace and happiness require effort. Or so we think.

Yet happiness and peace is who we are! We are the very things we yearn for and seek or work hard to attain out there.

Eclipsed and Obscured

I  love how the author uses the analogy of  the blue sky to describe our natural state.  The blue sky represents our natural happy state. We are happy under blue skies; not so happy under grey skies, right?  The blue sky is always there but sometimes we do not see it or remember it is there because it gets covered with clouds.  When the  grey clouds become our reality, in the sense they are all we can see or perceive, we may fail to see the blue sky beneath or to remember that it is there.  The clouds seem to stand between us and experiencing our natural happy and peaceful state. 


So if happiness is the natural state which is also the state of knowing and being aware...happiness never goes away.  We just do not  perceive it or connect to the experience because we are focusing on the clouds.  We are focusing on objective experience which includes our circumstances, thoughts, feelings, perceptions etc rather than on the natural state within us. So if those things 'out there"  are judged as unwanted because they are perceived as challenging or "negative",  there is a veil of grey cloud between us and happiness.  Happiness is still there , we are just not fully aware of it.

I will leave it at this point for now and I will come back and make better sense in my explanations tomorrow.

Of course, reading the book on your own may be the best thing for you to do.

All is well

Spira, Rupert (2017) Being Aware of Being Aware (The Essence of Meditation Series) New Harbinger/Kindle Edition

Awareness Shining Clearly

Knowing or being aware is not inaccessible, unknown or buried within us.  It is shining clearly in the background of all experience.
Rupert Spira, Being Aware of Being Aware, Chapter 1,pg 15 Kindle Edition

A beautiful book landed on my lap ...with a little help from boredom and a desire to find something else to read.  I came across this book, Being Aware of Being Aware, by Rupert Spira. 

I have not heard of this individual author before .  I have not researched him, prior to reading this book.  So I don't know if he is an authentic teacher, or if he is a leader of a cult :).  I don't know if he is on a genuine mission to help others awaken or if he is   someone who uses his  teachings to  lead people to serve his own egoic needs. I don't know if he is beyond ego or someone who seeks to feed a hungry ego. I don't know and at this point, it doesn't matter.

As I have said many times...I do not invest in or endorse any messenger, just the message.  I will open my mind to and absorb a message if it resonates.  This resonated. The title pulled me in on my search and then when I seen how it was a free trial read I made the assumption  this individual must have thought the message was more important than his own  gratification??

So I started reading the book and finished it in a few hours. (Then I bought it!)  Not that I recommend others read it like I did.  It is written in such a way to be received slowly with lots of pauses between written text to allow for absorption of the teachings.

But it is also  written in such a way that one can visualize and understand what is being said without effort or strain, so it draws you in.  Very powerful! The message is powerful and life transforming if it resonates.

It really does offer the same message of hope all spiritual teachings offer...the ability to put an end to suffering and to find peace, happiness and true understanding by getting back to Source.  Yet it uses what the author refers to as "the direct route".  ACIM , more or less, uses this too,  explaining that all we need to do is recognize our illusions,  let them dissolve in a "Holy Instant"  and we will  find salvation. Very much the same premise in this book, building on the teachings of some of the ancient Hindu scriptures. It also explains that we come to greater understanding through the effortless  non-practice of meditation...it is not a seeking as much as a "falling into" the Deeper Self.

It is kind of serendipitous, don't you think, that a teaching about the Direct Route and non-practice  comes into my life on the same day I write about not needing to speed this process/practice  up and not needing more understanding than I am getting bit by bit?

 I am going to go through this book so I can absorb it more deeply.  Again...if anything I say resonates, please read the book yourself ...do not accept my interpretation of it without questioning and examining for yourself.

I will finish the lessons from ACIM too...maybe we will find some similarities.

All is well!

Rupert Spira (2017) Being Aware of Being Aware. Sahaja Publications: Oakland

Follow Your Own Heart!

“And every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling,

“This is important! And this is important! And this is important!

You need to worry about this! And this! And this!”

 

And each day, it’s up to you to yank your hand back,

put it on your heart and say,

“No. This is what’s important.”

― Iain Thomas

Just a Reminder

I need to remind you where I am at so you do not have any false notions about me or so you do not assume I have any of myself. I like to keep it real.

Like I said many times, I am no expert in anything especially that which I have yet to understand. I am not a master or a teacher in any form other than a student who learns through teaching.

Far From Evolved or Enlightened

I am still very much in what I believe are the early grades. I am still a gooey and underdeveloped mess. :)  I still have many knots stuck in places I have no idea how to get at.  I am still broken and in need of some major healing in many areas of my "little life." I "know" little to nothing about anything. I, by society's terms, am probably not functioning too well in the physical world and I have yet to come to an understanding about the non physical world that I keep saying is more important than this one.

 I am definitely not "enlightened" or even close to it.  In fact, I still struggle to understand what enlightenment is. I am not seeking to become a spiritual master in this life time, nor am I intending to become a follower of one. I am just intending to  move forward to a greater understanding  than the one I have been conditioned to believe is true. 

I guess, to paraphrase the many poets before me, I am just seeking to be guided by heart rather than my mind, by Self rather than a collective ego, and to live in a way that feels right at the deepest level. I don't know how to do that yet...so I read and listen.  I explore what is going on in the world around me  and I turn  inward to what is inside me. I listen to that Teacher, more than any other...the lessons are still a bit garbled like Charlie Brown's teacher's voice but...it is starting to come. 

A Student and Life Long Learner

I bring any learning, as underdeveloped as it may be, here to this page because as A Course teaches, A good teacher clarifies his own ideas and strengthens them by teaching them.  Teacher and pupil are alike in the learning process. They are in the same order of learning, and unless they share their lessons conviction will be lacking. ACIM-T-4:I:1:1-3. This is how I learned through all my years of academia...by teaching others what I have learned  even if it was just to my cat in my room.  That is how I learn.  So I am trying to share learned lessons here , to test to see how strong my convictions are.  When I write them here, they strengthen...even if it is only a handful of teacher/students who read them....even if it is only one.

What I am trying to emphasize here, is that I am just a student...a life long learner who teaches to learn. Teaching and learning are your greatest strengths now, because they enable you to change your mind and help others to change theirs. ACIM-T-4:I:4:1And I am aware I may sound like Charlie Brown's teacher to many of you.

Don't Listen to Me/ Listen to You

So what should you do?  Take whatever I have to say with a grain of salt.  Don't believe any of it until you test it out for yourself.  Go inside you where the answers are, where your truth is and let that guide you.  I do hope whatever I put here will be a helpful pointer to you but I don't have teh answers.  You do!

The Leader/Follower Danger

Why did I bring this up now?  I watched Holy Hell  for the second time and it both fascinated me and disturbed me. Shows about cults  make me question my own seeking and my purpose for being here. I think of these leaders and wonder how and why people blindly follow them...people just like me who are seeking more understanding?  What happens in these cults is the seeking gradually gets lost beneath the ever expanding  ego of the leader.  The followers are slowly  manipulated  to worship the leader rather than that which they were seeking.

What is Wrong with the Followers?

There is some really good intention there, isn't there? What the followers are seeking is great, is it not? Understanding, love, community, service, compassion and peace is something we all want, is it not?  And these communities created by these leaders seem to offer that and maybe even genuinely at first ( though I doubt it with this guy who sought  hypnotherapy and behavioural training before seeking followers. Big clue that his intentions were more to control and manipulate a group  than serve).  So a community of like minded individuals come together with good intention only to find that ego once again got in the way of their seeking...sometimes to a dangerous and abusive degree. 

What is Wrong with the Leader?

Do most leaders set out to mass control and brain wash for their own egoic reasons?  Or is there some intention in them that is altruistic in the beginning?  I hear of some yogis, one I often quoted btw before hearing about his own endeavors as a suspected cult leader,  who do set out to help heal. By assuming role of guru, master, however,  it is  very easy, I suppose, to get lost under that devotion and adoration ...for the ego to swell in its "little me" glorification.  Hmmm!  It is scary!

Don't Follow/ Don't Lead?

So I don't personally like to follow anyone or to lead.  I like to share and to learn from others but I am very, very cautious about people who claim to be spiritual masters or gurus.  That is a role. I believe, meant  only for the truly enlightened...the truly holy...and the truly humble. 

There is little room for ego in any type of true leadership.  Isn't that what Lao Tzu taught over and over again? What Jesus taught? What Buddha taught?  Yes these individuals may have had disciples but in their life times they did not ask to be served, to be held up high, to be worshipped.  They kept saying ...the same that is in me is in you. Though man may have given them glory during and after they left this planet they did not set themselves a part other than to be heard when they were teaching. Ego may step into a human mind to convince it ...it is like these individuals but the moment one assumes glory, blind obedience, special service....then there is a problem. 

This documentary also made me question my own seeking.  Am I just grasping blindly at teachings to fill this hole of not knowing in me.  If I didn't have such an aversion to leaders or being a follower...maybe I would be one of those members that blindly serves someone else's ego for 20 some years? 

In Everyday Life

How do cults apply to everyday life? Do we do something like  that in a lesser sense in this so called "cult-free" existence don't we?  In our institutions, our politics, our religions.  These same tendencies to a lesser degree are there too, aren't they?

I don't know...this cult thing is one more thing I need to explore farther. 

I love the above quote/poem that brings us back from being followers to listening to Self.  Maybe we all have to do that a little more often.

All is well.

Holy Hell . Netflix

Trauma Suffering

If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.  Suffering is an eradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering in life, human life cannot be complete.
Viktor E. Frankl

A terrible, terrible tragedy occurred in a neighboring province this weekend.  A very, very sick human being gunned down and killed over 22 unsuspecting people in some act of violence that is so hard to understand.  I found myself hearing the news but  not really able to process it, thus my not referring to it over the last couple of days.  Some things are just too much for the human mind to absorb...like this example of the  extreme fragility of the human mind and the human body...so it usually denies, deflects or stuffs evidence of those things away.

Those Surviving This Trauma

Thinking about the trauma that the survivors of this atrocious act must be experiencing, (will be experiencing for the rest of their lives, I imagine), has led me to examine the nature of suffering  a trauma like this and how to transcend it.  Of course, I don't know!!!  I don't know how anyone gets beyond such a "shock". I am just taking what I have learned and what I feel in my gut as some less than perfect  attempt at empathy and hope.

Does Trauma Transform?

I can look at trauma...at a lesser degree...and see how in the long run it can transform into something life enhancing in the long run.  Yet how can one even think of any positive upon looking at this incident in this moment?  There is understandably nothing but grief, shock,  and fear, soon to be followed by extreme outrage now...but in time, maybe in time, there will be at least some semblance of peace.

As Eckhart Tolle, says when he answers a question from such a trauma survivor ( video linked below) the pain of such a horrid challenge may never completely dissolve in this life time for those who were involved or for those who lost loved ones.  They will carry it with them, in some form, for the rest of their lives; they will likely get lost in identification with it...they and teh world will define who they are by this incident for a long time; and maybe they will become so identified with this pain that they will resist and become angry at  any mention of there being a "way out" of it....even years down the road.  But I do believe that there is always hope that someday they will be able to transcend it.  This awful , unimaginable tragedy could become  a crack in an armour , that allows precious understanding and Grace  to come through....someday, someday.

For now...pain and grief will be their reality.

As Bystanders From A Distance

We as bystanders, can look upon this and learn as well.  We can learn...not to get lost in resistance of what happened by hiding behind "This should never have happened" ( It did) ...not to  hate...not to pass judgement and blame on anyone...not to shutdown in our fear...not to own the assumption that "All humans are greedy, violent creatures that cannot be trusted" or that " the world is a dangerous and terrifying place to live in"...not to point fingers at those who we assume didn't do enough...not to pity...but ...to reach out in love, and compassion, whether it be with deed or thought to those who are suffering and to humanity at large. 

The One Shared Humanity

We could all look at this, in a sense, that we were all attacked and...(this will be hard for people to swallow)...we all attacked. As one human race, it was our innocent brothers and sisters that were gunned down and it was our brother that gunned them down. Hate will not put an end to hate...only love in the form of understanding, forgiveness and compassion will.

The Habitual Mind's Reaction To Such Trauma

It would be so easy to get lost in the "story" of this tragic occurrence, "the idea"  of it; the thought stream that would take us into added suffering, drama and pain . By itself, this is more than enough tragedy, we do not have to allow the ego mind to jump into to create more suffering, do we?  

And our minds will do that...it is a habitual and conditioned way we have of reacting to such things.  First, we attempt to shut down and deny, push aside...then we resist with all our might the experience of "pain" by getting into our heads and creating a drama of hate, revenge, blame, fear and another reason to close down. This is so much better, is it not, than the red raw vulnerability we experience when we look at the fragility of the human mind and the human body as situations like this force us to do?

Stillness At the Core

Inside each and everyone of us is this "core of stillness" and it is there even in the greatest challenges.  This spacious center of who we are  cannot be harmed, nor can it harm.(Tolle). It is actually our refuge ...a place we can go to when the external world seems to be falling apart around us. (Thay Bhap Ho)   We need to access this place more often when we are not facing such gruesome challenges , so we can face them with this knowing when they do occur. This will not make the pain go away but it can certainly make it a lot easier to deal with. 

Accessing this place will also help us to "let go" of our pain someday, to release it so we can transcend it. The Buddhists teach that once we release pain it automatically transcends into something beautiful and healing for all.

That is what I wish for all survivors of this, for all of us...that we can someday...even if it is years down the road...transcend this pain through release.  In the meantime, let's pray for a little peace and ease throughout this trying time for all who are directly experiencing this trauma and for the rest of the world that watches.

It is as it is.

Eckhart Tolle( April, 2020) What Do You Recommend for Healing Trauma?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ2GfrendQg

Thay Phap Ho/Plum Village  (March 1, 2020) Earth Holder Retreat/Final Dharma Talk Deer Park Monastery. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG-HbasuW-I

Following Nature's Everlasting Rhythyms

When will I learn?

 

 

 

 

 

 

When will I learn

that I cannot force the flower to bloom before it is time,

that if I reach down to pull the petals on this blossom open

they will not come easily or willingly,

they will cling to life source in the middle?

If I pull even harder,

determined to see

a beautiful rose in bloom

before its time,

I will succeed at nothing.

I will tear the tender petals away

 

from that which  they cling

and, rigid with immaturity,

they will sit in my hand until

they brown and wither into nothing.

The once lovely and perfect

potential of a  rose will then

bow her innocent  head

to me in submission,

curl up and die.

 

 

When will I learn

that if I stand back and allow the rose to be,

not bothered by the clock's tapping fingers

or the hurried pace around me,

she will unfold  at the most precise and perfect moment,

a moment planned by a Divine Master of  absolute timing?

When she blossoms,

independent of  my controlling fingers

she will be ready,

her lovely petals  will stretch

like the graceful arms of a ballerina

as I watch nature's breath -taking performance in awe .

 

When will I learn

that I cannot rush the caterpillar's transformation?

If  I poke at the chrysalis

with the  tip of a stick

I will indeed pierce the soft silky flesh

of  it's protective womb.

I will see the beautiful colour of wing

within the hole I have created.

I can then tear away the remaining cocoon

to grab the transforming creature

that was once trapped  inside.

But the wings,

I long to be inspired by,

I will soon discover

will not open.

In their incomplete transformation,

they will be sticky and wet.

The butterfly will not fly.

It will never flutter away

in beautiful speckled patterns of colour.

It will instead  lay down in my hand and die.

 

When will I learn

that if I allow nature to be

in charge of the whens and hows

the way she is meant to do,

the butterfly will emerge

from his tight cage when it is ready?

At that perfect moment, it's wings will open

and it will fly away towards its purpose,

the magical transformation complete.

 

When will I learn that I do no good

when I try to help the baby chick

escape from the shell it is poking at?

If, when I  see the vibrations beneath

and the cracks appearing,

I take pity on the creature inside and break through

 to free it from the shell that traps it

I will do more harm than good.

What I will find instead of a

grateful healthy bird,

is a tiny bundle of gooey feathers

that struggles to breathe.

It will surely die  in my hand

as it gasps for air it cannot take in.

 

When will I learn

that if I sit back and watch instead,

excited by how much stronger each peck is getting,

amazed how much work the little bird is doing

to  get itself out of its entrapment

I will eventually be laughing at the antics

of a fuzzy little chirping fowl

that is strong enough to breathe on its own?

 

When will I learn

to be patient and to trust

that life has its own perfect timing,

its own agenda,

and its own perfect order.

The perfection of my life will unfold exactly

when it is meant to,

in the way that it is meant to.

I do not need to rush time,

to force change,

to help others who do not need my help.

I just have to be

as God molds me into something

magical and perfect.
 

When will I learn to be?

 

Dale-Lyn December 2014

Hastening Eternal Rules

What it needed was to ripen and unfold patiently in sunlight. Now it was too late.  My breath had forced the butterfly to emerge ahead of time, crumpled and premature. It came out underdeveloped, shook desperately, and soon died in my palm.  The butterfly's corpse, I believe, is the greatest weight I carry on my conscience. What I understood deeply on that day was this: to hasten eternal rules is a mortal sin. One's duty is to confidently follow nature's everlasting rhythm.
Zorba the Greek

I was reminded of that beautiful passage when listening to Robert  Moss speak of his book, The Boy who Died and Came Back. (see link below).  In his book he wrote  of this beautiful passage from Nikos Kazantzakis' Zorba the Greek. What great insight and wisdom exists in this passage and I can, in my narcissism fervor, relate it to my own awakening. Maybe you can too?

I am in the process of evolving...and I know I have actually used this same analogy before in the form of poetic verse (must find that)...but I am still mushy and under-underdeveloped inside a chrysalis.  I am impatient in this state .  I don't really know how to settle into it and relax.  I am still clinging to  all I left behind or what I lost in that other stage of my development, wondering if I can go back there and  at the same time I am  anxious to fly off into this new understanding  I am so sure I will experience when I evolve further.

This present stage seems to be taking so long lol.  But this passage from Zorba the Greek  reminds me that if we push this and strive real hard to bust through the walls of this cocoon that is here for a reason, we will find ourselves like Zorba's butterfly...unable to fly and unable to survive consciously in this new state.

We are all going to get there, to emerge into this new wonderful reality brought on by a deeper understanding when we are ready...but only when we are ready.  We need to learn to lay back and relax where we are and accept the process that is being directed by Something much Wiser and Greater than we could ever think to be. Let that be the breath that awakens us and others...not our own hurried little one's

It is all good.

Nikos Kazantzakis (2014 Edition as translated by Peter Bien)   Zorba the Greek. Simon & Schuster

Robert Moss ( November 2014)   Present! Robert Moss: Dreams and the NDE. KMVT. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWoK8u1bsXY

Lessons 162-170

There is a silence into which the world can not intrude.  There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost.
ACIM-W-164:4:1-2

Lesson 162

I am as God created me. This lesson professes that if we were to repeat these words until we believed them we would be saved; we would be free of fear and we would see who we truly are.

Lesson 163

There is no death.  The son of God is free. In this lesson our varied fear of death is discussed as an object and creation of fear  but also as something that cannot be real.  If we are as the previous lesson suggests, as God created us and if we are creations of  God and God cannot die, how can we? Of course...our perception of death comes with the ending of the physical form.  We do not die when our bodies do.  Again we are going beneath the tip of physicality to an  understanding of the depth of who we really are. (Below the water's surface in the Ice berg analogy)

Lesson 164

Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.  This lesson offers a reminder of the importance of seeing the world in the present moment, not with our eyes but the eyes of Christ (clear vision). It speaks to putting away judgements so we can see and  accept the world and Self for what it really is.  It also speaks to accepting and appreciating the blessings in the here and now, enveloped in the Oneness of all that is.

Lesson 165

Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.  Though we might doubt God's Love and Will for us to have and be all that we can be, the Thought that created us has never left us.  We are encouraged in this lesson to "ask with desire" for Heaven's Grace and Heaven is at our finger tips beneath the illusions of physicality that obscure It. We count on God and not upon ourselves to give us certainty. (8:1)

Lesson 166

I am entrusted with the gifts of God. As long as we see ego's world as the only world we will not recognize or accept the gifts God is constantly offering us. The gifts, however, are always there. We just do not recognize them, so caught up are we in ego's version of things. We have chosen to play the role of the tragic little self rather than embrace the Self we really are.  God wants us to receive these gifts and then by receiving others receive. He wants us to heal from our sick illusions and thereby release the world of  pain through our teaching.

Lesson 167

There is one life, and that I share with God. This lesson explains what death really is beyond our belief that it is restricted to the demise of the body. Death is the thought that you are separate from your creator. (4:1) and death cannot come from Life. 5:1 It is said that what seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping.  Life, like truth, just is and it is not how we imagine it...this string of events we label it as. There is only one Life, and as parts of God, we share that with him. There is no separate little lives and separate little deaths.

Lesson 168

Your grace is given me.  I claim it now. The grace that is offered us, is this ability to awaken to the truth of who we really are.  We are specks of God's light and therefore we are Love. Where there is Love there can be no fear. We just have to accept the gift and have faith in the Giver of this gift more so than our acceptance of it. We offer that gift to each other through forgiveness.

Lesson 169

By grace I live.  By grace I am released. I love this explanation of Grace offered in this lesson, Grace is acceptance of the Love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear.  By grace alone the hate and fear are gone....2:1-2 This realization of our Oneness  goes beyond any learning we can do with the conceptual mind. With forgiveness we take special steps in this direction towards the miracle of release from the prison our minds have created.

Lesson 170

There is no cruelty in God and none in me. This lesson speaks to the insanity of defense and attack because of fear. What we really fear is not an enemy outside of us but the Love of God inside of us. It is ego that is afraid of God's love not the Self but as long as we are operating under ego perception we deny what the Self wants.  Ego has convinced us of our need to focus on the dangers of the world.  We then project our fear outside of us.  We need to recognize how we use fear as a god of cruelty to worship when we follow ego's dictates.  We must recognize this deception and put down the fear of fear as well as the fear of God.

Love this: Father we are like You.  No cruelty abides in us, for there is none in You. Your peace is ours.  And we bless the world with what we have received from You alone. 13:1-4

All is well!

Lost in the Streams

 The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.
George Eliot

I am thinking of many things as I sit here not sure about what it is I am to write about.  Maybe I will just address some of the things I have on my mind.  My mind is a good example of just how busy thinking can get. You know how the mind is...if you follow one thought stream it will branch off into another and that one will branch off into another and another and another until you are good and lost in the stream following antics of the habitual mind.

I was thinking of the following things:

1. how welcoming this spot seemed this morning
2. my meditation yesterday and teh compulsion received to write poetry
3. the poem I wrote yesterday
4. a comment made by someone about the possibility of someone taking my poems from this blog
5. the thought of the possibility loss and betrayal in regards to this
6. the chest pain I am presently having off and on from pushing myself to do a yoga sequence yesterday that overtaxed my ticker leading to what I know to be a cluster of coronary vasospasms
7. past experiences with physicians that were shaming and hurtful
8. how I have learned to handle that, becoming untrusting of a system and the egos of those in it
9. my hot flashes
10. how I become aware of myself running off after these thoughts, trying to create story around them
11. my breath
12. just observation of the chest pain and the hot flash
13. accepting this moment and all that is in it
14. My mantra: It is what it is and it is because that is....it is all okay!
15. and how welcoming this spot is; how good it is to be here in it now!

Wow!  That is what went through my mind in a matter of seconds.  The mind can be a hyperactive monkey, can't it?

Thought stream One

My first thought was about how welcoming this spot seemed this morning when I sat down to write.  I did de-clutter it a bit over the last few days.  The light coming in this time of the day is lovely.  I can see the sun coming through the branches of the lovely Juniper outside my window and hear the breeze blowing in such a comforting way.  It is good to see how the earth is finally being relieved of the burden of snow that covered it so thickly. So yeah...this place was always comforting but seemed especially so today.  And I started to wonder if it was divinely orchestrated that I should find more comfort and welcome in this spot because it is where I am supposed to be.

Thought Stream Two

That brought me to the second thought stream.  I recalled how yesterday during my meditation, I asked what is was that was wanted of me, how I could serve with the little I have and the answer came to me as it usually does, "Write!".  Then I heard this time "Poetry!" I can't say it was an actual  voice I heard...I am not having auditory hallucinations...but it was an inner voice of some kind. I also seen the word as if typed out on a piece of paper in my mind's eye and I felt it.  It was weird but it was very powerful. 

At first, I resisted, telling myself that was just a quirky thought I was putting in my own head.  Why would I want to write poetry? It is too exposing, putting one out there to risk ridicule and shame and I am so shame based as it is...why would I do that to myself?  Besides how would I live as a poet, especially a not very good one.  Who makes money as a poet?

This resistance went on but the feeling beneath was too powerful so I surrendered to it and I heard more clearly what was asked of me.  I am not to call myself a poet...I am not to call myself anything.  I am simply to write what is coming through me.  Whatever words that come through are not mine.  I cannot take responsibility for them or credit...they simply come through me.  Yes, I can put my name to those poems (using  my pen here or my real name) and if any literary credits or compensations are due I can take those. But it isn't about me really.

I had this strong feeling, then, that I was to take what I am seeing, experiencing and learning and instead of always putting it into prose like I usually do, I am to allow it more often to come through into verse.  I am not to worry about the outcome, just the process. Weird! And I just said, "Okay!"

That is what I recalled this morning as I sat at this place that suddenly seemed more welcoming.

Thought Stream Three

Then I remembered  about how I came here after that meditation yesterday and I wrote a poem.  This poem was based on  much learning I have gathered over the years and was triggered by the video offered by Anita Moorjani , who by the way,  was saying how we should listen to our higher Self in determining the direction of our lives thus prompting me to ask that question about "How shall I serve" in my meditation.  

Her description about the world and Self we see being like the tip of  an iceberg really stuck with me as well. Now I have heard the ice berg description in terms of understanding the mind, as I have written here before.  10 % of the mind is our conscious mind and all we tend to see and understand.  Beneath that is the subconscious and unconscious mind which actually guides our behaving, feeling and living more than the conscious mind ever could but we do not understand it. I liked the way she took that "tip of the iceberg" analogy and applied it to how we understand Self and Life. That stuck

Thought Stream Four

So I was thinking about how a reader of my blog commented that they actually got choked up on reading my poetry and warned me to be careful. This person felt that others could take my words from this blog and use them as their own.  Though I assured him that that wouldn't happen, that I was copy right protected etc...he still felt I should remove all my poetry to protect it.

Thought Stream Five

I began to ponder over that possibility and felt myself a little worried and betrayed. I thought about the numerous times the  plagscan url showed up on my stats. Would someone take mediocre poetry and call it their own?  Why?  Could they do that and get away with it?  I reminded myself I was copy right protected but that led me to feel guilty about not trusting and fearing the loss of some thing like ego credit.  I want to be more evolved than that.  Then I remembered the meditation and how I was more or less told to not worry about outcome...it was being taken care of.

Thought Stream Six

Then the chest pain interrupted the above thought stream taking me in another direction.  I felt the pain and still, despite all my practice,  when I initially feel it, my first reaction is to resist it. "No!  I don't want this!  It should not be this way!"   Then to avoid that feeling of "doom and gloom" that usually comes with it...I get deeper into the thought process to begin to analyze it ...to determine what the cause of it is.  I recalled how  I tried and tried yesterday to capture a dancing warrior sequence on video for my yoga page.  Dancing warrior is too much of a cardiac strain...and I pushed past the symptoms then trying to convince myself that I was somehow evolved past this physical limitation that has been a part of my life for decades.

Thought Stream Seven

Then that led me to question why I keep pushing past that point.  Besides the fact that I still have some unhealthy "doing" tendencies I am still stuck in some knots created by  my past experience seeking validation for this pain and the other symptoms.  I have known for years  without a doubt it is cardiac...familial...but whenever I get the pain I am instantly reminded of my past  health seeking experiences. I recall with shame, anger, frustration how those in the allopathic system that I sought help from over the years have yet to truly validate my experience and I  remembered all the consequences I endured in  terms of loss of livelihood, documented inaccurate and very hurtful assumptions about me and years of feeling shamed and unheard. I felt a familiar and unpleasant feeling being activated. That knot is always pulled automatically at the first twinge of chest pain and it has led me to behave in certain ways over the years.

Thought Stream Eight

This stream took me into how I have chosen to behave over the years.  I thought about my lack of faith and trust in this system.  Of course, that brought guilt.  I do not like to think this way but the truth is I do. I do not trust that I will be looked after in my physical need.  This is evidenced by my latest health issue that I have totally given up seeking help for.

I do not like to feel helpless as I do with this thought stream so I then try to make myself feel better by realizing how this experience of so called suffering is actually a gem that now glistens and shines.  It has taken me to a deeper understanding of well being that goes beyond the body focus and dependence on man made systems in the physical world.  All I have experienced has actually helped me to evolve!

Thought Stream Nine

As I am thinking this I get a very intense hot flash.  And though I usually do not react to my hot flashes and am quite content to just watch them ...I did resist this one because I was still tied up in the reactive thoughts and  emotions of the  health seeking knot.  I thought , maybe this is not a hot flash....because I am sweating profusely with this while I am having chest pain , maybe it is actually a cardiac symptom.  Maybe most of them are now. How will I ever know?  No one will take me seriously.

Thought Stream Ten

Then I simply observed how I was caught up in these thoughts and how I was feeling all caught up in these emotional knots. I became aware once again of my  need to create story, to avoid feeling shame, pain, fear... how I run off from one thought stream to another.

Thought Stream Eleven

I brought myself back to breath.  I just consciously breathed in and out and I followed that breath in my belly.  I told myself I needed to cast this anchor out so I could bring myself back.  

Thought Stream Twelve, Thirteen and Fourteen

I then consciously decided to be aware of what was going on around me in this moment.  Since the chest pain and the hot flash were still so heavy in my awareness, I just focused on them.  I became very mindful of how hot I was without resisting that feeling.  I became aware of the beads of perspiration forming along my wrists.  I just sat with that and watched.  I watched the chest pain...observed how it came and went in little spasms on the left side of my chest moving to the center and between my shoulder blades.  I just watched it. As I did so I visualized that knot.  I allowed it and then I did something strange...I embraced it.

I put my hand on my chest and just said, " It is what it is and it is because that is...and it is all okay!"

Thought Stream Fifteen

After a few seconds I found myself back in this spot, in front of my computer, ready to write.  I looked about me and thought , "Man...this place is comforting today!"

 I took myself full circle from here to there and back to here, from now to then and back to now, from presence to  being lost in thought and back to awareness.   When I found myself out of the streams and back in the here and now, I began to write. 

As I tune into my chest now there is a bit of heaviness but no pain.  The sweating has stopped too.  How cool is that?

All is well in my world

Anita Moorjani (March or April 2020) ...sorry , for the life of me, I can't seem to find this you tube link so I can cite it here.   :(  I will keep looking! 

Tip of the Iceberg

Tip of  the Iceberg

Look beyond the large chunk of ice you see
 floating on the surface
of your mind's idea of life.
As  you stare at it from your bobbing perch
with binoculars fastened so tightly 
over  the eyes on your face 
...still the only tool of vision
you are familiar with...
be in awe of what your senses reveal.  
Watch in amazement as diamonds
of sparkling light are reflected off its crevices;
breathe in its fresh crisp presence 
carried on the salty breeze to you;
notice as its tiny icy fingers
reach out over the watery distance
to caress your skin making
your entire being tingle with chill.

Appreciate  its beauty and its grandness,
its spectacular magnificence,
but
do not assume this
surface phenomenon is the whole.
Question the possibility that there is more
beneath the murky waves
below what you can see,
touch or know with this  mind
that creates a shimmering, moving filter
between you
and the deeper beingness
of every thing.

If you could see below
into the depth of this infinite ocean
maybe...just maybe...
you would realize that what the eye sees 
is only 10 percent
of all that is.
Below this tiny peak is the mountain,
much greater, much grander than
that which the conditioned mind
allows us to perceive.

Wonder over that possibility
as you hold your breath in awe
upon  observing this amazing tip.
Then close your eyes,
breathe in deeply  
and observe the entire iceberg
that is you.

Dale-Lyn April 2020

Man I am definitely on a poetry kick and I don't know why. I do not consider myself a poet like I consider Wordsworth, Dickinson, Coleridge to be poets ( yeah...I like the romantics). I do not, by any means, compare myself to Tagore or Rumi or Gibran in the way they were able to translate their spiritual quests into poetic verse. I am not a Milton and have not received divine word by word guidance during my sleep to write epic poetry like Paradise Lost. I am not confident or comfortable as a poet...far from it.  I feel the poems I write leave me more vulnerable and exposed than anything else I do. My shamer ego always comes in at some point to critique and chastise my poems, more than it does anything else I write. That is why for decades I have shown my poetry to very, very few people and I never submitted for publication until very recently  Yet here I am popping up poem after poem  on this blog site. Why?

It is beyond me...as kooky as that may make me sound.  It is beyond me.  I am not writing these as much as they are coming through me and if they come through me here, I publish the post...no matter what Shamer has to say. I know without doubt that I am being taught something with every poem I write.  This higher Self, this muse, this One consciousness, Divine intervention...whatever you want to call It...answers my questions through poetry. It is an amazing and beautiful process that I do not understand too clearly and maybe I do not have to.  I just have to stay open...heart and mind wise.

I meditated today, and I asked like I always ask...what can I do to serve best at this time, any time.  What usually come sup automatically when I do that is "write!"  I never know for sure if that is just my ego throwing in a few ideas or spirit but it is such an answer that I know it comes from a higher place too.  Well the last few times I asked that question. "Write"... came up followed by "poetry".  And I was like..."Ahhh...not poetry!!! " Of course...I only resisted for a slight moment and then I happily accepted the offer.

So here I am...writing poetry.  :)

I was listening to Anita Moorjani this morning and she was talking about this ice berg analogy and I knew that a poem was going to come out of it.  Hmmm! I cannot seem to find the video I listened to at this point to cite it...I will get it and post it when I can.

All is well!