Home sick

 

I have arrived.  I am home.  In the here and the now...

Thich Nhat Hanh

Away From Home

I have not been meditating the way I usually do every morning.  My household is a little upside down right now in order to accomodate someone who needs it. The living room couch was all we had to offer.   That may sound like a complaint but it isn't meant to be anything but a fact...really. 

I have become accustomed to a particular spot on my dining room  table, just off the living room, for my morning ritual.  I sit in a chair there, not on a cushion, where I  am surrounded by windows that let the  beautiful light  and/or beautiful outside world in. It is sooo peaceful there...only because I decided it was lol.  Anyway...it is nolonger a secluded spot so I move into this room...my office...and here I am accustomed to writing.  The space has the energy of written thought in it. So even when I sit to meditate...I seldom follow through lol.  I find myself tapping away instead. Sigh!

Anyway...Like many of you, I am sure, I am feeling a little challenged  by life circumstance and a body that really is "expressive" (How is that for a way to describe the ticker acting up and the other little things I got going on in it?) As a result I often find myself lost, away from my peaceful center, overidentified with the thoughts and ideas going around in my head...reacting to them and not "home".

Home to me is that place where everything makes sense even when we don't understand a lick of it, lol. Home is always peaceful and calm, serene and still with big beautiful windows ( much like my dining room) where I can peer out and only see beauty.  When I am home, I am not affected by what is going on out there, you know? The light streams in brigtening everything so I see clearly what is important and what isn't. 

It is home I go to when I meditate.  I am home when I practice mindfulness, appreciation and acceptance for all that is. When I am experiencing Life in the here and now rather than "thinking" about it or creating stories around it...I am home.  Sigh!  I miss home. 

The thing is...home is still in me..never left nor will it.  Home is something I carry with me...not a place I have to go to.  I can deal with these challenging life situations so much better if I ground myself in home than I would if I keep getting  lost in my crazy mind. 

How do we go home when the outside world is so messy? 

• Slow down, stop and breathe. When things are chaotic around us, we often have the tendency to move with them or against them, don't we?  If your living room is upside down...what would you naturally be inclined to do?  Clean it up,  right? (well if you are not me, that is)  Fix it!  Make it better! And though it  is okay to do that to some extent...neither good or bad...it is not going to take you home.  The only way to go home is through quiet and a slowing down or a ceasing of action...if only for a few moments at a time.  So when you notice the chaos, the challenges, the body shouting at you...maybe you can resist the urge to "do" something and just stop, sit somewhere ( or walk slowly as in a walking meditation) and focus on breath going in and breath going out. Stillness in silence is the door and the breath is like the key to the door that opens into home. 
• Remind yourself where home is. Home isn't down the road or miles away. It isn't a distance away from you...home is simply deeper inside you.
• Go deeper instead of farther away. So resist the urge to reach out, seek out or freak out.  With that breath, just close your eyes and slip deeper below the external chaos, below the thinking and the story, below the "idea" of you to who you really are...Self.  Self is home. 
• Be here and now.  That is really what it is all about ...being here in this now, this moment.  Life can only be here and now.  When we wish for the moment to be different, when we numb from it through our busy work and desire to fix it, make it something it isn't...when we are stuck in the past or waiting for the future...we miss Life...we miss the "experience" of being home. So no matter what appears to be happening to you or around you...be here, be now.
• Home is self-cleaning.  The cool thing about this is that we do not have to clean up messes or make Life any different than what it is.  Life is self cleaning; home is self cleaning.  Chaos will come; chaos will go.  Illness will come; illness will go. Challenges will come; challenges will go. People will come in; people will leave. Circumstances will come' circumstances will go. Just sit back and observe.
• Relax through the body We need to learn to relax with what is. What is your body feeling right now? Scan it, notice the sensations. If you notice tension, breathe into it, encourage the body to relax and let go of it.  What are you feeling internally? Can you notice the heart  beat, the pulsations in your palms...any inner vibration?  Just notice and be aware.
• Experience Life through the body.  Now what is Life like in your body?  So many of us are numb to the body and therefore numb to Life.  When we sink into the body and become aware of it...we are closer to home. 
• If your help is needed you will be summoned. If we need to do something...we will be summoned with an inspiration or a little internal push. Wait for that inspiration to avoid acting from ego which is always a reaction taking us farther from home rather than closer to it.

All is well!

Life, the Teacher

 

Life itself is your teacher and you are in a state of constant learning.

Bruce Lee

My goodness...Life is one persistent and determined teacher. She doesn't get all rawled up in the classroom and run out saying, "I can't get this through to you!  I can't take it anymore!"  (I felt like doing that a few times in my own career, lol) 

Life: The Determined Teacher

She just calmly, wisely, and consistently keeps plopping the lessons down on the desk and waits for them to be mastered. She waits for us to "get it".  If we don't, or if we fail to complete them or go to her with "the dog ate my homework" excuses, she just gives us more of the same lessons and  if she feels we need it, she will give us  even more challenging ones. She doesn't say a thing, doesn't get harsh or mad in her tone or mannerisms...she just keeps plopping the lessons down, one after the other and waits, so patiently waits for us to learn.  

Well I can't even see over my desk now...the papers are piled so high. And I don't even know where or how to start getting through what I am supposed to get through...but...I can also trust in her kindness, her patience and her deep desire to help me too, can't I?

Another Challenging Lesson

I had another lesson plopped on my desk this morning.  We have  been waiting for an individual who desperately needed rehab as a life saving measure ( and I am not exaggerating here) to get into rehab. He had some issues with a bad high last week and has been staying with us until his admitting date which was supposed to be today.  He has been waiting for what seemed like a long time to get in.  Anyway, during that bad dose with meth, he also injected a strong ( often lethal) opiate...and did so without the most hygienic of measures and ended up with an injection abcess at the site...which turned out to be a full blown infection.  Being that he had two valve replacements last year for staph endocarditis ( a bacterial infection in the heart). ...he is indeed highly at risk.  It places him in the "medical patient" category and rehabs are often not equipped to handle medical patients. 

So we ( by we...I mean, him, his Dad and myself)  were left with the decision...an ethical dilemna so to speak: Do we drive him there anyway and not say anything (which would have been totally dishonest) and hope for the best medically ( he is on a strong antibiotic...but my guess he  could need IV antibiotics) or call and be up front, knowing that it will delay rehab. 

The question comes up...what is riskier...going without rehab and fatally overdosing on the drugs he has been using  or developing endocarditis or an osteomyelitis?   I did not want to be the one who made  or "strongly guided" the decision.  I am  just the "step" but this morning I "strongly guided' the call to rehab and as I thought it would be...he will not be going. Sigh!!!!

What has this got to do with me?

I want him in rehab for all kinds of reasons. Mostly because I want him well and alive but also for selfish reasons. I don't want to deal with this.  I don't like dealing  with the egos of others, as I mentioned before and dealing with  the"addicted  ego"  ...man is that tough! I don't feel well physically right now ...so it makes it  even tougher. ( Had another up all night with the abdominal thing last night). I seem to be soaking up the "darkness" that comes with this too...if that makes sense. There is a lot of "negativity". That triggers my ego.  So I am a mess. I don't always see the light. 

I want to be the light, I want to help, I want to give but the question arises...can I?  Do I have enough in my cup now? And being that this requires so much from me, will it deplete me to the point I cannot deal with the other big things in my life? 

What does Life want me to learn?

So I am trying to quickly figure out the lesson Life just handed me.  What does she want me to learn? 

I know I have been sucking up, rushing past and trodding over  the moments of the last few days to get to the moment of him being in rehab.  Maybe she wants me to learn to stay present and to accept what is as it is and when it is? Or to see beyond my petty needs to the needs of others? To see beyond ego and darkness  to the goodness and light? To prioritize caring for myself at a time I feel so pressured to care for others? To just learn to give it all up to God? To once and for all fall below surface reality to the safety and peace of what is really important...if I can do it here, I can do it anywhere? 

Man...I don't know.  My head is full, my heart is heavy but I have my hand up.  I will ask the teacher for some one on one remedial help. She will come to my desk, won't she? 

All is well!

Soul Mining

 

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine

?? Don't know who wrote this song? 

Man...I am kind of making myself nauseated with all this "poor me" crap I have whirling around in my my mind.  Yes, I have encountered some darkness.  And what do we do when we encounter darkness? Shed a little light on it.  

Darkness

What do we do, then,  when we perceive suffering? 

We slip down past it into the deeper realms of who we are. 

Now we might think, because we are going deeper, it will be darker...like going into a tunnel, mine, hole or cave. It may be darker on the way down...true.  There is the proverbial "dark night of the soul"  to consider...so named for a reason. As we move towards the depths of truth, there may be some confusion, fear of the unknown and the pains of letting go of what was familar to us. We may get walloped with more than our fair share of external challenges ( so it seems).  What we knew as reality, the body's version of light that we have come to believe is the only light there is gets dim, dimmer and dark on the way there.

Miners Going Into Darkness

We are in a sense miners. What does a miner wear on his/her hard hat, that they turn on, as they begin their descent away from the surface reality? A light ( which ironically is usually situated where the third eye is said to be). They use a light to guide them, give them comfort and allow them to see where they are going when they get down below surface level. 

We have such a light, an inner light, we seldom access because we are either so dependent on the eyes on our heads to determine reality (our five senses) and if our eyes don't see it  we convince ourselves there is nothing there to shine light on.  Or we absolutely refuse to hop on the elevator that takes us down.  We refuse to leave the surface level and go deeper.  So we don't access this light within.

Pushed Toward the Elevator

What if the things on the surface becomes so challenging  and so chaotic that old ways of dealing with them just don't seem to work anymore?  What if one gets so tired and beat down by surface level reality they just do not want to stay on the surface anymore?  What if someone, or something reminds the someone or something within them of another, better  place to be that exists beyond the darkness? What if they got on the elevator to go down? What light do they turn on?

Faith...The Light In The Soul Miner's Head and Heart. 

Faith is the light we can turn on on our way to Light. Truth is ...the darkness we so often resist takes us to light. Unlike most of the human population who stay on the surface level, and unlike the miner who stays on the level of darkness...we are called to go even deeper. 

At the deepest level we experience a light so different, so much more powerful than anything we can imagine. To get there we often need to travel into darkness and uncertainty first.  The little light we have inside us ...faith...can be the thing that is needed to get us there, to get us on the elevator in the first place and through the dark night to the truth of who we are. We need to have faith as we fall deeper into Self, that the light of Life is there...heck we need to have just an inkling in our conscious minds that we are not just going to the light, we are the light of Life.  Faith is the light we use to get to the realization that we need no light because we are Light. 

Unlike the Miner

We are unlike the miner in other ways. We aren't mining for coal.  We aren't mining for ore or precious gems to bring back to the surface.  We are mining for Light, for Self, for Truth and it is that we bring back to the surface with us. It is this we give back to the world. 

We do not have to "work" and struggle as hard as the miner does, either. Going deeper is not about "doing"or "thinking", it is about "being". 

And we also know, unlike the miner, that when we return to the surface we are not going home. We understand that the surface world is not our reality...it is temporary and perishable, offering nothing that can sustain us and fulfill us.  It's light is artificial and dim compared to the Light we find below the surface.  

We can enjoy being on the surface, play with what's there and definitely shed our light to all...but once we encounter the Light below  we will never be home on the surface of our existence.  Home is in the depth of who we are. The Kingdom of Heaven/God  is within. The more we go home, the more home we bring to the surface and the smoother and more beautiful  that world gets.

So let the light of faith in you take you through the darkness that comes with challenge to the greatest Light of all.  Let the Light shine in you and through you to all.

Hmmm! Now that is something to think about.

All is well!

See Grace not Evil

... the extremely important point is this: as far as man's earthly life is concerned, if he believes in evil, he experiences evil; if he believes in disease, he experiences disease; if he believes in hell and the devil, he suffers all the tortures they offer each time he falls from what his own mind considers to be grace.

Andersen, Uell S..

Did I Slime You? 

All is well! I apologize for my relaying the heavy information...my sharing the challenges of my life right now ...as boring or as as distracting as they may be for others to hear about. Someone once told me that sharing the heavy negative experiences of our lives is like "sliming" someone...like pouring a big bucket of gooey, sticky gunk all over them...so that they have to walk through the rest of their days with this stinky mess, that does not wipe off easily, stuck to them. I didn't mena to make you slimy and stinky :) 

 It is also a "complaint" isn't it?  In a sense I have gone beyond expressing a certain "what is" so that I recognize, allow and accept it...to complaining about it.  That is not great.  I will never get through the 21 day complaint free challenge, if I keep that up lol.  

Thinking Negatively Does Not Serve

And Andersen reminds us  that thinking the way I do will definitely not serve me or others. I can see how it doesn't  serve me.  I see how it is effecting my thought processes.  I have not had a violent dream in eons...last night my dream was as violent as they come.  I was every protagonist in the dream running from the antagonists which were definitely the epitome of what we know as "evil".  They hurt, destroyed and made others suffer because, as they told me, they enjoyed it.  Instead of standing up to them, like I usually do in my dreams, I ran. 

What does this tell the Jungian in me...I am being overwhelmned by negativity and have a sense that faith in my ability to handle it is missing.  This is anxiety by the way...pure and simple and I woke up anxious. I have not felt that way in a long time.

Deny evil; Embrace Grace

Now Andersen tells us to "deny all evil".  I am going to say...do not ignore the challenges, the emotional reactions they seem to effect in us...just ignore the idea of "evil"which is the belief that some force that seems stronger than us is out to get us.  That is illuison.  

When life seems heavy and you feel like you are having to run from it, like I did in my dreams last night...stop yourself, take a deep breath, connect to the something that is all powerful...powerful enough to move mountains...and turn around and deal with what is in front of you.  Just face it.  

I had one of my protagaonists do that last night...it was scary as heck but this me in this strange huuman form I was in, a man...turned around and asked the person wanting to kill me..."Is this what you really want to to do? You really cannot hurt me...not really and running is too exhausting." I then proceded to scare him/her with this idea of  hell as punishment.  Well I got my head blown off but...I didn't feel anything in my dream lol...I just found myself very quickly in another body running like the dickens away lol

Anyway my point is...the answer is not to succumb to this notion of "evil" but to add light to the darkness, add faith, add Love. This is grace.  Grace is all around us, even in those dark corners of our minds. Shine the light there and Grace will be seen. Grace will show us that there is no such thing as "evil". 

Sure express yourself but just be careful about getting lost in a story that takes you beyond acceptance to "sliming" not just others but the eyes by which you can see grace.

Hmmm!

All is well. 

Andersen, Uell S.. Three Magic Words . BN Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Faith Moves Boulders and Mountains

 

He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, "Move from here to there," and it will move. Nothing will be impossible to you." 

Matthew 17:20 (NIV) https://biblehub.com/matthew/17-20.htm

Not sure what to write about this morning.  I sit here looking out the window of my office as the wind blows the branches of the big trees this way and that...what strength and power there is in something we can't even see!  Aha...The strength and power in that which we can't percieve with our five senses.  That's a good topic to write about.

Waking Up to Truth 

I have been waking with that very "real", very "intense" if not "urgent" feeling in my underarm. Last night...when I expereinced it...I just knew it was sooo real.  Over the course of the  last few weeks, once my "waiting period of denying and ignoring everything to keep my sanity"  was over ...I have been open to hearing my body's attempts at communicationg with me. I have been waking up knowing that what it wanted me to pay attention to was real.  In those moments of complete unobstructed awareness that come with the sacred hours , if we are fortunate to awaken in them, there is only truth.  Throughout the waking hours of the day that followed, however, I found myself  diminishing its reality or significance.  It went from a " This is truly something whether it is known by others or not!"...to a "Well maybe it is just this or just that" and finally, "Gosh it is nothing and once again I am creating something when there is nothing there." 

But at night...when I wake up from a deep sleep...I hear it.  I come from a point where I am not thinking about it, not dwelling on it...therefore I am not manifesting it...I just feel it so intently. Last night I knew I couldn't deny it any longer.  I won't ignore this.  I won't beleive when  others call it something it isn't either. Sigh! 

Is this what I wanted to write about?

No! It just came out lol. Maybe it has something to do with my topic choice.  I guess I want to talk about faith in the unseen that has the power to move mountains even if it comes in a form as tiny as a mustard seed. I want to write about that ...I do.  I believe it is there so close...for all of us.  I am walking towards it....( I use the getting somewhere thing again even though I know it isn't about getting somewhere but more a falling into what is) but there is this big dark boulder in front of me again.  It didn't just show up as a random occurence of nature, either. 

Faith Beyond the Boulder

I rolled this boulder over onto my path with my reaction to the end of the waiting period, that added to the other serious family situations I was dealing with .  Everything got dark, light got obscured because something was in my way again and it was in my way because I put it there. It is like when  the six months plus was over ...I woke up from hibernation, walked over to where it was hid  behind a bunch of trees and I  rolled it back onto my path. Why? Why would I do that?

It was almost like that is what I was supposed to do. Old habits die hard, don't they? Like many people do, I have these dark limiting beliefs attached to my very core and it is these beliefs that led me to put the boulder in front of me, as yet another obstacle to get through.  It isn't life doing anything...no matter how over zealous it seems to be in providing learning opportunities for me, for us...it is the unconsconcious attachment to the familar beliefs that leads us onto these obstacle strewn paths in our minds and in our lives. ... leaving me standing  a distance from the faith I want and deseprately need at this time. 

Faithless

When we feel like we are standing away from this faith that moves mountains...we are usually just stuck in our minds, in our stories, our fear.  This is what being faithless is maybe. When we are in this deep dark forest of thought, limiting belief and reactivity...we do not see the truth  that is and always will be "right there". We do not see what is.  (When I say "see" I mean ...true seeing that has nothing to do with the eyes) We lose , for example, touch with the body's experience of the world, the unseen.  Do you know what your body is expereincing right now in this moment? Do you "feel" it or is it like you are "thinking" about what your body is doing here and now? Thought and limiting belief take us into a story about life rather than  the expereince of living through the body right here right now. 

The belief in unworthiness that so many cling to; the belief that we are seperate and alone, at the mercy of a big, bad unpredictable world that has  been ingrained in most of us...is the source of my boulder rolling habit. Pathetic, I know but I also know that I am not alone in my tendency to roll boulders onto my path. Most of us do it. We focus on the boulder and we do not "feel" life.  We are numb to it. We therefore do not recognize our capacity for faith. 

What will Faith do?

I don't know if faith will make this thing I have under my arm validated, treated and go away but it will bring me remarkable peace wouldn't it?  If we could just fall back into faith like a performer falls from the stage into a sea of arms, knowing we will be carried somewhere...even if we do not know where...wow! There would be no need for reactivity, story, or fear.  There wouldn't be the constant pressure of trying to fix, struggle agianst, "do" something about it. We would just trust it was all being taken care of in the way that is best for all. We would expereince  the sweet release and relief of letting go. The mountain of our resistance to what is , is what gets moved with faith. 

Belief -less Awareness is Faith

When I awake before this belief has a chance to do what it does...when there is just me and the moment and the body...I feel the "what is" of my body and my life. There is no boulder between me and it therefore what I am expereincing at that moment  isn't generated by thought, story, worry or fear.  It simply is what it is...my body talking to me, telling me there is something in it that needs release.  Maybe it is this beleif it wants gone.  Who knows?. 

In that moment I can do two things...roll the boulder over onto my path or I can simply be with "what is".  Being with "what is" is where the truth  is...falling back into that truth is faith, the faith that  moves mountains.  That which moves the mountain...like the wind...can not be seen...only experienced.  

Hmmm! That is enough rambling for one day.

All is well. 

Being There

Being there at the moment is everything!

Unknown

 Hmmm! I was going to come here to talk about a lovely meeting with old friends I had last evening but before I had a chance to write, I received a call from someone who is deeply suffering. Having a slip  in his attempt at recovery, he injected something that left him with severe paranoid delusions .  He is terrified and I could do nothing but assure him that he was safe, that what he was believing was not true. (In truth, I  fear some permanent damage was done).  I just felt his pain and it was hard.  He is on his way here and I will sit with him a bit but he needs help I am not equipped to give him. 

I am afraid he won't get the help he needs in this "overwhelmned" system because he is an "addict". And that is all people see now.   He was already sent home twice.  It is a  case of "co-morbidity" but the addict is seen first and the pain condition   sometimes, if ever, afterwards.  Sigh!  

I am already feeling heavy. And I am just the "step"...you know.  Poor D....I feel his pain too over this.  I soak up emotion like a sponge...always have.  I learned to close down some over the years but closing down to suffering, both my own and others, has led to me closing down to life.  I don't want to do that. I want to stay open and loving no matter what...allowing that Love that is in all of us, is all of us, to come out, to be there for him and for me.  It is just so damn tough, you know?  

Being with that group of wonderful ladies yesterday reminded me of the goodness of people, of the goodness of Life.  This type of suffering can to...because this is a part of Life...just as much a part of Life as happy conversations around a table of old friends and acquaintances . Hmmm!

My prayer now, in such situations, " Lord..make  me be an instrument of your peace..." You know the rest, don't you?  I love those eloquent words of Saint Francis...they keep me going sometimes. 

It is all good.

Pay Attention To Nature

 The flower loves it when you give it attention...Through you,the flower recognizes itself. 

Eckhart Tolle

When a human becomes conscious of nature, nature becomes more conscious of itself.

Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle (February, 2019) How Do I Keep From Being Triggered. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAaBXlC8-bU

Self Righteous and Humbled

 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this story: 

"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other  a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: God, I thank you that I am not like other people-robbers, evil doers and adulterers -or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.

But the tax collector stood at a distance. He wouldn't even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said: 'God have mercy on me, a sinner. '

I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all those who humble themselves will be exalted. "

Luke 18:9-14 NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2018%3A9-14&version=NIV

Exalted or Humbled? 

Ooops! Did I ever sound self -righteous in the previous entry.  Wow!  I was surprised to see ego puffing up in myself when I mentioned how I am "giving" in my percieved lack of "having".  I did not intend for ego to slip in the way it did yesterday when I was simply wanting to express guilt, maybe, that I didn't pay for a service I have gained so much from. I tried to rationalize, compensate and counter that guilt with some story of how I give.  

That is not true giving! When we attach pride and even the subtlest bit of "aren't I great" or "look at how much better I am than another" to giving, it diminishes giving and inflates the ego. (Never a good combination). 

Oh well..I am learning.  I am aware of what I am doing and I leave yesterday's post up as it is, so I am reminded that ego is still around.  Do not have to run from it, make it the big scary enemy, or try deperately to push it away or beat it uncoscious.  Just need to be aware it is still around and recognize it when it pops up. A revealed ego can do little damage to the lives we know, while a hidden and denied one can do a lot! 

I actually love it when I catch ego in action. It is like a game to me, a learning game. I catch myself "reacting" in a certain way, identify ego in the thought stream, feeling or action and I point it out.  "Oh...there goes ego again. Up to his silly tricks." (I sometimes refer to ego in masculine gender lol). Just by the process of and ability to watch, I detach from ego and the thought, feeling, behvaours that feed it.  I see it, not as me, but something I am observing.  It loses its punch when I can do that. I am no longer "lost" in it. 

It is great to see Self as the observer rather than  to be trapped as  the tragic  victim, or the gracious heroine  in these stories we create in our minds.  We can go beyond the need to build our little me identies with a bunch of thoughts and ideas.  We can simply fall back into who we really are and be there and be that.

Cool eh?

All is well! 

The Struggle With Limiting Beliefs

 You begin to fly when you let go of self-limiting beliefs and allow your mind and aspirtains to arise to greater [deeper] heights. 

Tara Brach and other Great Teachers

Serendipity again! I was blessed with the showing up of another video from Tara Brach this morning to support what I was writing about yesterday.  What a wonderful, wise teacher she is.  Please check out the video below and support her site if   you can...just so that the site stays on line helping others especially at this time.  Don't get the wrong idea though, please.  I am not a promoter or a sponsor of anything to do with people making money for ego reasons! I do believe her reasons for doing what she is doing go beyond ego.  As do mine. (As you can tell by the fact that I do not advertise here or want or seek anyting akin to payment.)  

Supporting and Allowing The River to Flow

So when I make that suggestion to support, I am simply trying to support  sites that I access alot for my own learning and sharing here. Plum Village is a big one I would like to support. As part of Buddhist tradition an alms bowl, what the monks and nuns depend on to live,  is held out ever so graciously and undemandingly. Whether we support their livlihood or not, they continue to offer wondeful teachings on line. How long will they be able to give without receiving?  

Right now I am benefiting from the learning these sites offer,   more than I am giving  and supporting. I have issues with international payments, being that I don't  have a credit card and have no pay pal account...not to mention that I have little money, lol. I will find away, because supporting "healing", mine and the worlds, is something I feel called to do.   

When I get the little I get in terms of capitol, I try to give. What I have doesn't stay with me for long.  That is the way it is supposed to work, I think. Money is like water flowing to us, through us and onto someone else. We just kind of turn in the direction we want it  to flow. It will always make its way back to us again and again and again.  Sometimes it will be in abundant rivers; sometimes in tiny trickles but what we give always comes back. As long as we don't cling to it, damn it up so we have more...it will keep going around.  That is the way I see it anyway.

Anyway...the last thing I wanted to do was talk about  my trickling finacial situation or capitolism in any way, shape or form and here I come off like a hypocritical promoter or an advertiser! Forgive me.

Back to the Video 

The reason why her video was serendipitous for me was in how it related to my fear beliefs that were generating this reaction. so I will use the teachings she shared in relation to my own expereince.  Hopefully you can relate it to your own as well.

My Limiting Belief

In my having to deal with this helath issue again,  I mentioned yesterday how I was grouping a whole system together, closing down and not trusting.  Now there is  no doubt  that I had some nasty experiences with the  egos of others that got in the way of their professional role and my health  seekinge experiences did not always  go smoothly..for sure. But the cause of the suffering I have and do endure has more to do with this deep limiting belief I have entangled around my psyche's core...than it does with whatever happens on the outside of me.  In fact, I am seeing how this belief is actually leading to or aggravating external situations in this direction. 

I have a very sick belief that has been with me most of my life that I do no not deserve appropriate attention, help and support when it comes to wellness. That there is something wrong with me, and I should be ashamed, when I ask for it from the very busy and somehow "superior" beings who can give it to me. 

"Real but not Truth"

As much as that makes me kind of gag as I write it, it is the truth...well the "The real but not truth!" that I subscribe to. I know where it comes from.  Sadly, it is almost as much a part of me as my beleif in God. It is not just a part of my  mind but it is in every cell of my body. So I am vibrating with  fear and shame whenever I walk through the health care system's door. It is from there that I operate. Obvioulsy that is going to effect the way I present as a patient,  what I recieve and how I deal with it.

Ego...is on a consatnt search for evidence to support this idea and it finds it...there is enough  real evidence out there.  If it can't find it, it creates it or exaggerates the minor things.  It collects, accumulates and adds up all the findings to prove this to me...so I stay fearfully and shamefully chained to this awful belief.  It appears so real but it isn't true.

It isn't true becasue it is just a thought in my head, a concept and idea. It is not what is.  It is not the air entering my lungs, or the blood gushing through my heart.  It isn't the feeling of being alive, here and now .  It isn't who I am! It isn't my essence...it isn't Love. It is just a thought. Sticky, tenacious and powerful...but just a thought.  

Tara Brach offers some powerful tips to unhooking ourselves from this belief. She calls this R.A.I.N.

• First we need to recognize and  notice what we are thinking and how that is impacting our lives in very unskillful ways. 
• At the same time we need to see how that it is just a thought not reality...not truth "Real but not truth"
• Then we need to accept that we are doing this, feeling this, believing this.  Allow it for now
• We investigate it further: Where did it come from? How long did I beleive it? How is it effecting my life? What kind of life did it lead me towards? How much suffering did it cause? We feel the sorrow of what we lost, what we suffered through because of this belief. 
• Then we nurture it and ourselves.  We don't beat ourselves up for it.  We didn't decide to believe this...we were taught, conditioned and trained to believe this. At this point we ask what it is we need to feel presence and Love right now? We give that to Self or we seek a real or spiritual embrace from another. We nurture ourselves.

After this is done, we ask the most profoundest of questions: What would life be like if I didn't think anything was wrong with me? 

Wow! That is a question we should all ponder over daily regardless of our deep limiting beliefs, don't you think. 

Maybe someday soon, I will get back to you with my answer. 

All is well! 

Tara Brach ( Sept 23, 2020) Freedom From The Prison of Limiting Beliefs  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gjCN-pB-WM

 You cannot make God or consciousness, which is the enemation of God, into an object of perception or an object of knowledge...You are what you are looking for.

Eckhart Tolle

Lighting up the world

You are the light of the world. Matthew 5:14

So we are all here to be the light of the world.  What is the light? Consciousness.  So we are to shine the light of consciousness on the world so that we  can find what we are looking for...consciousness....which is actually what we already are.

Confusing huh?

You are the eternal light needed to discover the light that is you. You are a small enemation of God, a ray off the Brilliant Sun, the eternal subject, the eternal observer. You can not be observed, perceived or known.

You canot "know" this with the mind.  You can not conceptualize it or understand it.  You can only be it. 

Hmmm!

All is well!

Eckhart Tolle  Teaching on 'Being the Light'/Awaken your inner light https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypv5nEBBRYg

Failing to Appreciate

 

The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.

Dalai Lama https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/appreciation-quotes

Sometimes I read my entries and see how bruised up I am  because of past health seekinge experiences and how in my hurt, I want to blame something or someone. I clump every part of a system together into a big ball of "enemy".  I look at the "whole" system  as faulted, defective, and uncaring.  It isn't fair and it isn't true.  

Though there definitely have been some whose ego needs and assumption got in the way, and there were those who were too busy and too distracted from things in their own life to see clearly beyond these passed on assumptions,  there were others who did their best to help and support me.  I have recived a lot of help and kindness from my GP and I have recieved help and good intention  from  some ER and clinic staff.  There were also some specialists who made a real  effort to help despite how busy and overwhemned they were in their practices. There are many who are truly in this for the well being of others.  To all of them, I say "Thank you"!

When I am on a mental rampage , seeking to justify my need to collect grievances, I neglect to think about or open up to the  positive part of this experience, to remember and relay apreciation for the help I did and do recieve. I neglect to see the "goodness" in others.   Such "suffering"...the mind's  reaction to painful experience...is  an "unskillful" and unhelpful way to approach life.  It leads to a "closing down"   for me or the others involved. It causes more unnecessaty pain.

Even in those individuals I clearly see active egos in  that  can blind them to the needs of others, there is goodness.  There is goodness in all at deepest   level.  I need to remind myself to look  beyond ego, mind, personality, role, behaviours and their consequences.  There can't be anything but good. My "closing up" leaves the world "unconscious" rather than moving forward.

So I get angry.  I get fearful.  I collect grievances.  I make judgements and close down...probably in this situation, more than any other in my life. That may be why Life keeps handing me situations that bring this issue up. It is time for me to learn.  I do not have to fight to be heard in this system.  I have to simply  "not close". Contemplating the appreciation I feel for those that  try will help to keep me open. 

This is what it is and it is all good.

Hmmm! All is well. 

Fear: The Enemy Between the Ears

The worse enemy lays between the ears.

Eckhart Tolle

Fear

 I am sitting here...avoiding something I am afraid to do. Sigh! I have to make a simple phonecall ...just a simple inquiry about a test I was supposed to have had done, as I was told,  in August.  I just have to pick up the phone, ask a question, accept an answer, hang up and then do whatever I am called to do next. Simple, right? Yet I am avoiding it.

The Irrational Nature of Fear

I know my avoidance is irrational and silly.

 How long?  How long would that simple action take from my life span?  Thirty seconds? Maybe a minute or two?  

How dangerous is it? Is it life threatening?  No...not in the moment, at least.  No fangs are going to come through the phone to tear me to shreds. I might have a heart attack if I discover that the test has been booked next week, but I won't die. This one simple action is not going to kill me. 

Yet I am in full stress response.  It is as if I am standing in the middle of a pride of hungry lions in the middle of the Serengeti plain.  As I stand there, all the animals around me seem oblivious to my plight (or are simply  thankful that I am on the menu for today,instead of  them). They are just munching away on their grass while I, trembling like I am having a grand mal seizure, can barely look at the phone (the lions), let alone pick it up.  What is up with that? 

The Wait is Over

It is October first, the day I gave myself to take up the external fight  for my well being again. Worse, I have to start thinking about it again...and that is the real problem.

I had tried my best, and quite successfully, to put this out of my mind when I was told I would have to wait for six months for the next step.  Something told me that it would do no good to push,  to keep reminding myself and others that "there is something there", that "I wake up every night with this feeling (what I guess could be called pain).", that "It keeps changing." that "I am high risk.", that "I was suppose to have these tests done anyway", that "there were significant changes on the tests.",  "If it is what my sister had, it is going to be too late...it has been almost a year since I first noticed the changes.", that "It could be related to the pelvic pain I have been getting?" and that "I don't think it is just ductal ectasia anymore. I am scared."

Succumbing to Resistance

No...that would not be heard. And for a host of other reasons, I do not feel equipped to fight against resistance. 

The resistance I felt from one individual was almost palpable.  I heard the explanations, more than once,  about how expensive these tests were and how it wasn't reasonable to assume that they get performed on every woman with a "bit of dense tissue".  Title and power and resources seemed to need protect ion, more so that my menatl or physical wellness.

 COVID came..and that meant further delays beyond everyone's control. 

And I know there are many others who are waiting too; who are worried and afraid, maybe many with more reason to be concerned than I have. 

So, I just knew in March, when the six month wait was offered like it was a gift to me I would have no choice but to wait, even if the waiting could prove detrimental to my wellness. So I sucked it up.  I did whatever I could not to think about it for six months, then seven.  I told myself I would not palpate (becauseI knew I would find something else and it still wouldn't change the waiting situation); I would not call, I would not mention it to another living soul ( well I guess it came out here) until the wait was over. The wait is long past over and I still haven't heard. 

I  had a feeling I wasn't going to hear back in six months.  Even when it turned into seven months, I wasn't surprised but I did hope that something would happen so  I would not have to pick up the gauntlet again and fight against the obstacles that kept coming up.  I have had to do that so much in the past for other things.  I am just tired, you know? It takes so much out of me and it scares the %^&* out of me. 

Fear and Mind: The Real Enemy

The thing is, I just don't have to push against a reluctant system, the COVID pandemic, uncontrollable circumstances... I have to push against the memory of past experiences, the shaming, the denial of my reality, what it cost me in terms of wellness, finances, livelihood, career, and title that I so want to forget about..  Even when I know these things were never really important, never really me and that they led me to what was important, I still feel the fear when I have to confront another health issue again. These memories overwhelmn me. 

When I remove "story"   from this expereince and look at this need to make this phone call without drama or thought,  as I did in my meditation, I still notice a big knot of fear between me and peace. I still have an intense , almost compulsive desire to avoid.  I guess there is some other deep sinister memory, or nasty forboding thought  lurking in the background of my psyche leading to this irrational and silly response . 

Victim of Unconscious Mind

So what came to me today in the form of a video? Eckhart Tolle's, The Fisrts step in Conscious Manifetsation. In this video he talked about the fear that arises from being a victim of an unconscious mind, when we believe eveything our minds are telling us. My fear is not about having to make a phone call...it is about what my mind is doing with the 'what if" of the phonecall. Who will I piss off by being pushy? Will that lead to more resistance? Shaming..if it turns out it truly is nothing toworry about? What if it leads me to discover that it is something? Am I ready for that? All just thought! Thought that pulls me in and shackles me to fear. 

How do I stop this? 

Presence Provides the Safety

The first thing I need to do is breathe, be here and now, tap into my deeper essence, presence.  Then I can look at my conscious thoughts and those unconscious ones lurking in the background (when and if they arise in conscious mind), as just that ...thought. Not me....not Life in this moment...thought! 

When I can do that I am Home, I am aware and I am safe. Whatever happens from this place of awareness,  won't be so bad.

All is well. 

Eckhart Tolle ( 2020) The First Step of Conscious Manifestation. https://consciousmanifestation.eckharttolle.com/the_first_step_of_conscious_manifestation39077931

Does thought actually create our external reality?

 Welcome whatever Life brings to you in each moment, even if if is difficult. Do not complain because  if you do you are in an antagonistic relationship with Life and if you are in an antagonistic relationship with Life, Life will reflect that back to you.

Eckhart Tolle (somewhat paraphrased) 

Just had a bit of inspiration come to me, a remotely possible way out of this finacial hole I "percieve" myself to be in and I intend on following through.  Regardless of how it turns out I am so very grateful for the inspiration , for the bit of light that flicked on in me (Yeah...I can almost see one of those cartoon balloons with a light bulb being turned on  over my head). 

Another Click of A Light bulb!

I had another click too.  You know how , when I was reading Andersen's Three Magic Words, I kept questioning if thought actually created our external reality?  I loved the messages he shared, especially in the meditations.  They resonated with something deep inside me. And I do agree that The first cause is always mental, especially when it comes to suffering yet, this idea that we directly "manifested"our reality with our thoughts didn't 'click'..  I think The Secret kind of ruined it for me ( no offense to The Secret..I loved it when it first came out...I was there then...but I think I evolved a little bit beyond its take on the Law of Attraction, especially on the egoic way we are encouraged to use it and "what" we could use it for.[ I know that sounds so condescending and self righteous of me...I will try to explain it better at another time. ]) 

Does thought actually create our external reality?

So I had a hard time agreeing with  Andersen's proposal that we directly think our worlds into existence.  Even though the Yoga Sutras allude to this, and quantumn mechanics, other scriptures and the Bible even in some passages do .  There was just something missing, a vital and deeper wisdom. It, therefore, seemed  a bit  "Woo-woo" .  

When Eckhart Tolle never seemed to come out and say he agreed with this ability to manifest, though he seemed almost  pushed to do so, I kind of walked away from the thoughts shared in Three Magic Words with the question, Does thought actually create our external reality?, unanswered.

Eckhart Tolle Says It Does

Then today in. Awaken Your Inner Light, Tolle more or less came out to say that our state of mind will directly affect our external reality. He almost echoed Andersen with this statement:  The world is the realm of effect; consciousness is the realm of consequence. Yet, he did so in a way that took into account the higher wisdom and the true motivation for viewing and thinking  "rightly" as the Buddhist teaching shares and what Jack Kornfield calls "viewing wisely".  He was saying that we can change our external reality by being present but presence is what we truly want, not a change in external reality. 

The True Goal for Changing Our Thinking Pattern

We do not try, then,  to get beyond problematic thinking  so that we can get a million dollar mansion, a fancy sports car or a trophy wife...but so that we can evolve the way we are meant to, both on a personal and collective level. We want to change  our relationships with what our minds are doing so we become more conscious, aware and present in the level beyond the mind. When we bring conscious presence to external situations, whether they be joyful or difficult, withourt ego reactivity, we directly affect the outcome in the physical reality for ourselves, and the world. The real goal, however, is not to change what is coming and going in the external world but to get to a higher level of consciousness. It is just a secondary consequence of being present that our lives tend to become easier and better. 

A Better Understanding of a Universal Teaching

I can see now how Andersen was truly trying  to get that across. He wasn't stuck on the superficial level of manifesting...He was talking about the evolutionary need, the Universal desire,  for all of us to connect to the USC, God....  

He also encourages  us to do the same thing as others, like Tolle, do when we encounter challenges in life we might want changed . We are to see ourselves as seperate from those challenges, to not react...to trust in a higher power. It is this surrenering to what is that will bring peace, not the change in external reality that will surely follow. Hmm! 

When I am faced with apparent confusion, I surrender it, give over each of my problems and worries to that which has the perfect solution and in which there is absolute clarity. I take my thoughts from the limitless reaches of Universal Subconscious Mind, never from the world around me. I do not think responsively, I think originally; I do not react, I act. I am never a victim of circumstances, for each thing of my life proceeds from out of my thoughts, which move always in accord with God. Location 4086

Someting to think about.. 

All is well!

Andersen, Uell S.. Three Magic Words . BN Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Eckhart Tolle (September 29, 2020) Becoming A Conscious Participant /Awaken Your Inner Light/ Mini-series # 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx3tN9Qf_l0

Suffering: Not the Only Truth

 Sometimes I go about in pity for myself.  And  all awhile I am being carried by great wings across the sky.

Ojibwa saying

We get so lost sometimes don't we, in our own personal challenges and sense of "suffering"?  We master the first of the Four Noble Truths.  We know that suffering exists.  

But as Jack Kornfield reminds us in his video by the same name...suffering is not the end of story. There are three more truths to consider.  There is a cause for suffering and it isn't anything "out there".  It is our reactivity, our greed, our resentment, our attachment to the world of form, our tendency to believe everything the ego mind tells us that causes suffering. There is also a way through suffering and a path to peace, joy, happiness and the ultimate experience: love. We just tend to stop and get stuck on the first truth...that suffering exists.  We often fail, therefore to, to see beyond it. 

The great power is not to be afraid of suffering.

If we knew what caused suffering, we could end suffering.  If we knew that the cause of suffering was primarily overidentification with thinking and circumstance, we would detach from thinking and circumstance wouldn't we? We would observe it...not as us...but as something just passing by our awareness.  We would not hate it or push it away.  We would simply view it with "Loving awareness", with "amazement" and with peace.  We would then realize that we were not only observing with loving awareness...we were loving awareness...and we would offer ourselves freely to the world. 

Suffering, then, is not the end of the story.  It is merely the beginning that leads us toward the end.

What is the end of the story?

A loving heart.  Suffering takes us to a loving heart. 

All is well!

Jack Kornfield ( September 26, 2020) Suffering is not the end of the story.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPcArisRmH8

Staying Awake with Challenges and Self Compassion

 Every challenge takes you a little deeper and awakens you again and again.Without the challenges you would probably go back to sleep.  The challenges keep you awake. 

Eckhart Tolle (https://www.azquotes.com/author/14703-Eckhart_Tolle/tag/challenges)

Yesterday's Post

Hmmm!  I posted yesterday's entry on death being the unifying motivation for all life after I wrote it.  But throughout the day, as I was recovering from a weakened state, I pulled it down.  I had this thought that people wouldn't get it. It was too "negative", too "dark", and too "whiney" .  It had sopped up and seemed to be  dripping with some  stored anger and frustration I released as I wrote it.  It also  brought up some things I had supressed, represed and denied over the  last seven months so I could get by...triggering some deeply rooted fear and suffering.  Having what seems like a truck load of stuff to deal with already ..I wasn't sure if I could deal with that too. So...I pulled it down.

Serendipity

Then today...serendipity once again reached out to me...with...guess what? ...another video from Eckhart Tolle.  (This is truly bizarre...and I don't care if google anyltics is involved in some form of site tracking or not...this is beyond bizarre...how these perfectly synced and timely  videos show up for me to watch as soon as I turn on Youtube....is amazing to me.) 

Talking to Me

Anyway , it was like he was talking to me and what I wrote about. It ws like he was noticing that I have so much on my plate, a sudden influx of challenges on a personal level, reminding me that I was actually being blessed with all "this stuff".  I know that.  I see how much I have evolved. I am evolving a quickened rate becasue of it.  I am realizing my essence identity and that I am here , as all of us are, not to be comfortable but to evolve to a higher level of understanding,  so we can light up the world in the darkest places. I am waking up and I don't want to go back to sleep.  If I need these challenges to keep me awake...I welcome them. 

Meditating with Self Compassion 

To further the expereince,  as I was meditating today, I decided to add that light in the form of self compassion to my practice.  I began to feel compassionate towards myself for the "perceived" suffering I am and have been enduring. I saw myself in several of the challenging life situations I have encountered.  I mentally reached in and  pulled myself from each situation I was randomly recalling .  Then I put this changing image   I had of me at the times I was struggling with changing outward events, in my heart.... without the circumstance, just with the pain.  

And I  rocked and soothed that image with loving kindness, the same way I rocked and soothed all my children when they were little and hurting.  The tears started coming, one by one, and I focused on each tear following it from my eye, down my cheek  with every exhale.   The mindfulness was soft and gentle and healing. It was free of my own judgement and self criticism...For so long I beat myself up for my pain.  I thought if it wasn't validated by others, it wasn't real and if it wasn't real  I had  no right to feel it, let alone express it.  I stuffed it all inside. That is why I took that entry down yesterday.  I believed I hate no right to my honesty. 

Today I allowed myself to feel it. It was with compassion and kindness that I embraced my pain without the suffering that other opinion,  drama, and story add to it. I can assure you it wasn't self pity or a desire for melodrama that moved me...It was just me accepting my pain with kindness, compassion and Love.

Why I Share

Now I share this because I know I am not the only person in the world who suffers and I am not the only person who adds what Tara Brach refers to as "the third arrow" to suffering by beating ourselves up for it, by denying our own pain until others validate our right to it, by stuffing the truth of our experiences. 

If we are going to be the lights of this world(which we are all here to be), we need to first shine the light on ourselves.  If we are going to fill this world with compassion and kindness, especially in places where it seems to be deficient, we need to start by being kind and compassionate with ourselves.  We also need to speak our truth, not in a reactive ego way...with the intention to hurt, to make guilty or to attack but simply to make known the need for change, the need for all of us to wake up a bit in order to make the well being of each other, all beings, the world the priority.

Hmmm! Well that is what I came to see this morning. And I am no expert.  Sigh...I don't know much.  I just know that if challenges of any kind, be they physical, mental or circumstantial, lead us towards a bit of loving kindness for self or others...for all beings on this planet....it can't be all that bad, can it? 

All is well! 

Tara Brach ( 2004) Radical Acceptance. Random House

Eckhart Tolle ( September 27, 2020) Challenges as a Pathway to Conscious Evolution  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fEuGGbOv3o

Impulsive Drive Towards Life or Death?

 

Find death before death finds you.

Eckhart Tolle

Though I usually never plan before hand what I will write as I sit myself down here in front of the computer, I found myself in the middle of the night  deciding what my next entry would be. I had a bit of an overwhelming encounter with my physical form.

A Long Winded Explanation About My Body's Inspiration to Wtite About Survival

I woke up for the second night in a row  with intense  but familiar lower abdominal/pelvic  pain (been having the same type of pain off and on since 2016...thought it was endometriosis) and sickness that led me running back and forth to the Bathroom all night. 

Besides that my ticker was acting up from a mini hike we did that day.  I had the usual exertional pressure in chest, dizziness,  and palpitations that I get from overexerting myself. 

If that wan't enough the pain in my underarm seemed to intensify.  It led me to put my hand to the spot for the first time in months  and I could feel something there. Though I felt  discomfort in the area for over 9 months, I refused to palpate it during the six month wait for another MRI I was given. Deciding that I wouldn't sit with fear and negativity as I waited for a system (individuals within the sytem) that seemed to be resisting my every move towards wellness for their own egoic reasons to smarten the heck up,  I made the conscious and not so conscious decision to repress, supress and deny my way through what turned out to be  7 months of waiting for a test I have yet to hear about and one I know I will not hear about unless I  begin that fight and struggle all over again.  I have no choice now...I feel something there! Sigh!

And on top of that  my joints which were getting increasingly stiff  over the last few weeks were noticeably stiff,  hot and sore everytime I got up last night.(It isn't COVID)  My mind began to spin...I had pulled a tiny black legged tick out of me in July. I put it in a pill bottle with the intention of sending it off for testing, not so much for my sake, but as a public health measure to determine if Lyme carrying ticks have finally  made it this far north. I doubted if they did...I wasn't going to go on a prophylactic antibiotic because I was just on one for a nasty UTI. I truly thought it was next to impossible for me to get Lyme Disease. So I put that out of my mind too.  Never thought much of it until I developed a large bulls eye rash in that area two weeks later.  Then it hit me...I forgot to send the tick for testing. I went to get the pill bottle and noticed that it had turned to dust. There would be no way of validating, then,  if it was carrying Borrelia. I stuffed  the "oh no" down and said I would wait to see if I got other symptoms.  Though I have been noticing increasing joint stiffness and muscle pain  especially in the hips, knees and elbows..I kept chalking it up to doing something wrong in my yoga practice.  Last night my hips, wrists, knees and hands were hot.. That's not yoga. 

I thought,"Oh my goodness...I couldn't have Lyme Disease, could I? Like really...would I have that added to everything else I can't get diagnosed? I know that Life is here to test us but this is like giving a Grade Two student the MCATS...telling them they won't get to Grade Three unless they pass them...don't you think?   A little too much? "

Or is it?

It seemed that every  physical ailment I was dealing with, denying or ignoring  decided to make itself known to me in the middle of the night. I was reminded that my physical form is undergoing some challenges.  Making me aware of these things was like it whispering to me, "I want to survive...pay attention to me...do something!" Then it dawned on me  ...all beings on this planet have this inherent biological drive to survive.  That is what unifies us. We are all being challenged in one way or another. We feel pain as a sign that survival is in jeopardy.  Our forms undergo change in order to adapt to a changing environment so we can survive. We feel pain but we also want the pain to end.  

A Writing Topic

My mind was made up:  I was going to come here today to write about the thing I thought unifies all of us, "The Unifying drive to live" and the "the unifying drive to end suffering".  Hmmm! Pretty straight forward.Great topic.

Then, as I was sitting, somehwat sloppily and negatively at the table with my tea...all I could put in me as replacement fluid...a video showed up on my desk top for me to view.  I was suddenly challenged by another idea.What we really want is not so much Life but death?

Huh?

In Transcending Limitation to Awaken, Eckhart Tolle reminds us that the evolutionary impulse that unites us is not a desire to live, but a desire to die.  

Say what crazy lady?

Sounds pretty morbid but think about it! What happens in death state or its minature form of deep sleep  is we slip awat from mind and body as pure consciousness, and are reconnected to what is real and important...to all there  really is.  We are reunited with the One Source, with our timeless ( eternal) essence.  

Deep Sleep-The Mini Death Experience

Deep sleep is a death of the ego but not of us.  We are not aware of body or "little me" in that state but neither are we 'unconscious'. We still exist as something... otherwise we wouldn't wake up. Who we really are beyond body and mind needs these 'little deaths' to remind itself of its essence.  It is driven to die for certain amounts of time every night..

When we are tired and lay down at night, we are pulled toward sleep  because of this impulse  to slip out of our form, our ego, our mind and  our body to rediscover just how formless we are.  When our bodies are a certain tired after a certain life span we are pulled toward death for the same reason. Even though we do not have the capacity to know this in conceptual sense. 

Seeking the Formless

It is reconnection with our formless, egoless essence that we seek through death.

The thing that unites us then is not this desire and drive to stay in physical form but to be reunited with the formless nature of who we are. 

The good news is we can die before we die. We can reach a state of Self-realization, a state of awareness that who we are is formless, and egoless without ever having to take our last breath. We are called constantly to that state.

Death is not the end of Self

We have this notion that death is the end of  not just form but everything. It isn't.  Death  is not necessarily an end of body. It can be just an end to our attachment to this world we created with our minds. 

 It is not an end to us. There is "eternal Life". Only form dissolves , not the essence. And our forms do not have to die before we can discover this essence of who we are.  We can in a sense die before we die and from there learn to truly live.

So I don't know what my body is doing.  I don't know how long it will last....maybe another 40 years ...maybe another 40 weeks.  I don't know.  Maybe its urgent communications with me are not there to ensure I do what I can so that  it can survive.  Maybe they are there to remind me of its adapting and  perishable nature so I find what it is truly important before I leave it. Maybe it is there to remind me that I will not be united with what we all truly want through attachment to its 'existence' but through   death, which only involves my  mental detachment from this world . 

Hmmm!

All is well. 

Eckhart Tolle ( July 3, 2020) Transcending Limitations to Awaken. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEk7SDBkiHg

Turiya

 

Do Not expect the world to make you happy.  It is not here to make you happy.  It is here to challenge you so you evolve, expand and flower.

Eckhart Tolle (Somewhat paraphrased)

I learned a new word today, thanks again to Eckhart Tolle who once again serenidiptously ( and unknowingly lol) reached into my life with a bit of wisdom when I needed it . That word is Turiya (missing an accent over the i).  I have been   studying yoga for a while and I have been fascinated by the symbol of AUM but I somehow missed that word "Turiya" which represents the forth level of  pure and whole consciousness, true awakening. 

So I decided to look a little more into it through translations of the Mandukya Upanishads which is arguably a combination of both Hindu and Buddhist teachings. 

In Turiya we have transcended the other three levels of consciousness or what verse 3 to 7 of this Upanishad refers to as Atman/Self/soul. which are: 

• Jagrt (accent over a): "waking state", outward knowing and deals with the gross body/form; external existence
• Svapna: dreaming mind, inward knowing, subtle body; consciousness
• and Susupti: the "state of deep sleep" where the underlying space of consciousness-"the knower of all", the Creator and dissolver of all things is undistracted, unmoved by the going ons of the physical world.  This is known as the causal body; bliss

The Forth state of consciousness Turiya...is complete unity with all that is that takes us beyond the external state of being, the internal state of being and any type of conceptual understanding . Here we are Self/Atman.

How this looks with the AUM symbol....(sorry ...I am no artist)

So what does all this new conceptual learning have to do with this idea of  me?  

Well besides fascinating me- I am so intrigued by this type of learning and yoga in general...it reminded me that what I am seeking...whether I get close to it or not in this life time...is Turiya.  

This idea of "me" I am becoming more and more aware...is not who I am. I still get  lost in this stream of thinking, in conceptual mind and this idea of "my life". ...when I meet up with challenging external situations. At the same time I know  I am evolving and going beyond that towards Self. That... I find is amazing and exciting.

I am beginning to see, observe, and recognize my thoughts as thoughts, rather than as me, as Tolle describes in the linked  video below.  

We often say "I think" as if thinking  is something we can control but we never say "I beat my heart"...do we?  Thoughts are like heart beats...they are involuntary. We don't have to put all that energy, then,  into trying to stop them or control them. We just have to observe and recognize them as thoughts...therefore something on the surface of who we really are. Just as I see, observe, recognize my breath as breath and my heart beat as my heart beat, I can onserve my thoughts. (I can, because of my little issue,  hear and feel almost every heart beat if I close my eyes and focus.)  

Anyway...I see that thought and circumstance are just happening.  I do not have to try to stop them or control them...I can simply watch them and see that they are not me. Who I am...who we all are at the purest level ...is deeper than that all that. 

So what that means is that I can continue with my pray, "Please take me to peace" rather than ask "please give me some peace." 

My situation does not have to change.  I do not have to try to stop teh thinking or make it more  "positive"...I just have to keep reminding myself there is a whole level of "being" underneath all this where, regardless if the mortgage gets paid or not...I will find what is really important..  Hmmm!

All is well.

B.K.S. Iyengar (2013?) Light on Pranayama. Thorsons: London, England

Manorama (2020) The Mandukya Upanishad.Sanskrit Studies https://sanskritstudies.org/mandukya-upanishad

Eckhart Tolle (June, 2020 ) Discovering Freedom Through Challenge.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgXhEImYvb4

Wikipedia The Mandukya Upanishad. Retrieved Sept 25, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandukya_Upanishad#:~:text=Aum%20as%20all%20states%20of%20consciousness,%22without%20an%20element%22%20respectively.

Praying for Abundance

 

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came so that they may have life and have it more abundantly.

John 10:10 (https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/John%2010%3A10)

Sigh!!! I was thinking about lack and poverty and scarcity this morning.  I, like many, many people do, have some "financial worries". I have a deep "poverty'scarcity/lack" written in what seems to be permament marker over the white board of my consciousness. :)  

I have no idea how I am going to pay my mortgage....none! I thought I let go of that worry...gave it up...but it crept back into my awareness this morning. End of the month is approaching and I have no idea how to solve this problem in the physical world sense. Then serendipity blessed my Life again with the video below...just as if  it was on cue from a Director...it is so amazing how that happens. 

Eckhart Tolle reminded me of this passage from John.  I did some thinking on it and realized I was allowing myself to be robbed.

The thief of peace ( my big fat ego...my attachment to this idea of "me against the big bad world" ) snuck in through some window I left open and is here to steal, kill and destroy. Well...that is its intention. 

But there is something much more powerful than ego...isn't there? Christ explains how He came to offer us this reminder of  Something Greater ...this higher consciousness...God realization ...and how this , unlike the thief, ego is...will give us Life and give it to us much more abundantly. 

What is abundance?

I don't think He was talking about paying my mortgage lol...though that would be nice. He wasn't talking about filling our lives with " external world things" that may actually take us farther away from the truly abundant life rather than  closer to it.  He was talking about being abundant in the 'stuff ' that really matters...peace, joy, Love and connection to who we really are and from Whom we came. His presence in our lives and in us...is a reminder of that. 

Adding a word to my prayer

I used to pray in my desperation, "Just bring me  peace"...meaning that I was asking that my external life situations be changed so that I could have some peace.  Then I realized I forgot a word in that prayer...a tiny but so important word..."to".  

I pray now..."Please bring me to peace."  I am not asking that my life situation be changed anymore.  I am asking that I be returned Home...to that place inside me, around me...inside and around  everyone, and everything..that is so spacious, real and wise....so that I can accept the life situations from there.  

Ego can try to come in there...it can steal whatever it wants there  ..but if it can be stolen it isn't important. It isn't real.  The truly important things cannot be stolen, killed or destroyed. Ego will  realize it is just wasting its time on me. It will back off on its own accord and my life will be abundant in the things that really matter.

All is well.

Eckhart Tolle ( August ,2020) How can the power of presence help me overcome this poverty mindset?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbJHTVjKC1I 

Not Knowing

 In the not knowing, there is a deeper knowing.

Eckhart Tolle

Comfortable Not Knowing?

Most of us want to know everything about everything...sometimes we even believe we do or at least we pretend to.  Uncertainity scares us...even though it  can be the thing that takes us deeper. 

Who is reading this? I don't know.

I have no idea how the stats analytics on this blog works lol...so I have no idea how many people are reading this blog, let alone getting something from it.  Why I question:

• Yesterday I had a reported 168 readers, most of which registered as coming from Portugal.  (Yeah!!! Portugal...a place I desperately want to visit...Before walking became a challenge for me, I always dreamed of doing "The Walk" pilgrimage between Spain and Portugal.  Not sure if that is the  Walk of Saint Thomas or  The Walk of Saint Francis...anyway...I digress) So I registered 168 views but the readership on the individual blogs does not add up to 168??? So I am not sure that anyone from Portugal actually read anything. 
• I also still register "no followers" when I know for a fact I have at least a dozen. :) (I am happy with a dozen.  Grateful for that dozen).  
• The stats  show readership from all over the world which is very interesting and it is exciting to think we can connect with others so far away...makes this idea of borders and geographical distance illusionary. Then I wonder...am I actually connecting or is it some type of url hitchhiking? Am I actually getting these readers across the globe? What about the language differences...would people actually bother to read something in a different language if they have to go through the process of translating it? 
• My highest scoring entries are ones that would not entice a reader ... like "Excuse the formatting on the last entry" lol
• Only get a few comments

Don't Need to Know

So anyway ..I do not have a clue how many people are reading this and getting something from it. I am aware that people are clicking on to the site for reasons  other than reading and that is adding to stats. Ego, at one point would have needed to know...would have demanded that validation that I am being read and received well.  The part of me that guides me here every morning, however,  doesn't need it...doesn't need people to risk their privacy to comment and I do not need to see large numbers. I am really happy with ten genuine readers a day and thrilled when I get over 20. I just do the writing as I feel pulled to do and allow this Thing I can't understand take care of the details.  I am okay with that and I am okay with "not knowing".

Don't Know Much of Anything...

I actually do not know much of anything and I am beginning to find comfort in not knowing.  I do not know how many lives I am impacting here...though I do get  comments saying that I am helping a few which is wonderful...mission completed. When I started this, I told myself, if I made a difference in one life...even if that life was mine...I would have done what I set out to do. So that is all good. So I keep coming here, not knowing.

I also don't know if my other words that have yet to be published  will ever be seen, let alone help someone.   Yet, I keep writing, keep reworking things to make them better, and submitting so that they may be picked up, published and shared with the world. While I write, edit and submit... I find peace with not knowing how it will all turn out.

I don't know about my body and what is going on it or how it  will all  turn out either. I am attempting to find some peace...just letting it all go...letting Life decide.

I don't have the answers to my questions about Life and God and I may never get them until I die...but I keep asking, keep searching, finding comfort and inspiration  with the not knowing.

And as Eckhart Tolle reminded me today in his video ....I do not know who I am really. I mean...I know surface level stuff and I know what I read, listen to, learn but I do not have  the deeper Self knowing...because that cannot be known conceptually. It is beyond knowing.

So finding comfort in the not knowing is a great thing.  We just go breath by breath, step by step, and moment by moment "being"...trusting ... instead of knowing.

All good. 

Eckhart Tolle (Spetember 18, 2020) Comfortable Not Knowing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q_3RwffAz0

ACIM Continued: What is the World?

 

Forgiveness paints a picture of a world where suffering is over, loss becomes impossible and anger makes no sense. Attack is gone, and madness has an end. What suffering is now conceivable? What loss can be sustained? The world becomes a place of joy, abundance, charity and endless giving.

ACIM: Lesson 249:1:1-5

I had a hard time with the  What is Salvation?...because that word,'salvation', has a lot of conditioned connotation attached to it and it doesn't settle easily in my mind. I am hoping the next section, What is the World? ...will be easier to understand and explain. I have to remind myself and you that these are just words...only pointers to a greater understanding that cannot be explained with words. 

3. What is the World?

The first line kind of says it all, The world is false perception. The way we see the world is erroneous ...it is "wrong".  And I can use the 'right and wrong' here when I talk about this world view because that is partly what makes the world we tend to see through ego's eyes so wrong.  It is full of duality and dichotomy. So the 'world', as we see it now, is ego's world...an illusion created and limited by ego's dependency on the five senses, body borders to seperate, sin and punishment and the development of fear.  It is an illusion...a false reality created so ego can thrive...a place that locks God and love out. 

All we need to do to see the "real" world...to see "rightly"... is to change our perception..to seek what lay beyond this world ego paints for us to the truth of who we are and from Whom we came.  Forgiveness is simply a change in perception. 

Lesson 241: This holy instant is salvation come.

When we forgive the world for its illusions and see quickly in this instant...this moment, the only time there is...that we are all One...we immediately are saved.  We are home. The illusion of  suffering leaves and the truth of joy and Love emerge into our awareness.

Lesson 241: This day is God's.  It is my gift to Him.

Here we recognize that we really do not understand the world but we ask that we be led to God Who does understand it. We trust in Christ and the Holy Spirit  to take us toward home, to God. Thy Will be done.

Lesson 243: Today I will judge nothing that occurs.

This is a beautiful lesson in accepting and appreciating what is...without the need to judge or label....to put aside our dualistic tendencies that keep us caught in the illusionary world and to just allow creation to be itself.  We admit that we don't know, in conceptual terms, what is ahead of us but that truth is in us all.

Lesson 244: I am in danger nowhere in the world.

In this lesson we are taught that there is no need to be afraid or to doubt.  In the real world, so unike ego's, we are safe. It is only illusion that threatens.

Lesson 245: Your peace is with me, Father, I am safe

In lesson 245 we are reminded that God's peace is with us always and it is our duty and privilege to pass that peace onto the world.  When we share this peace we recognize who we truly are...a united Self.

Lesson 246: To love my Father is to love His son

We can not find our way to God if we have hate or vengeance in our hearts for others. We choose to love all of humanity as God wills we do.

Lesson 247: Without forgiveness I will still be blind

We will not discover the truth without forgiveness and forgiveness is merely recognizing how we have percieved wrongly.  Our brother( again...look past the masculine terminology) is not the enemy...he is a part of who we are. We see Self in our brother's eyes.

Lesson 248: Whatever suffers is not part of me.

Here we recognize that the suffering we percieve is not a part of who we really are...it is simply a mind creation, an illusion. We are Love, as is God, as is everyone.

Lesson 249: Forgiveness ends all suffering and loss

Once we see ourselves and the world for what it really is there can be no more suffering.  Right view ends suffering.  When we remove our minds from ego's traps, and return them to God's Mind...this is forgiveness and this is what ends suffering and loss.

Lesson 250: Let me not see myself as limited

When we look upon our "brother" ( another) we see ourself...our powerful, unlimited Self so attack would never be warranted.

All is well!

ACIM (2007) A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume: Workbook. Foundation For Inner Peace: Mill Valley

Walking in the Here and Now

 I have arrived; I am home

in the here; in the now.

I am solid; I am free.

In the Ultimate I dwell.

Thich Nhat Hanh, peace is every breath, pg 30.

This wonderful teacher offers these words to those seeking mindfulnes through walking meditation in his lovely little book, peace is every breath. With these words in mind, we can notice, allow and sink into the present moment with every step we take; with every breath we take. 

What does it mean?

Breathing in, stepping down: I have arrived...

The goal of mindfulness...and the goal of Life... is to be in the moment...to be.

Being is not about going anywhere or getting anywhere but in order to conceptualize what being is to a mind that is always trying to get somewhere...we can tell ourselves we have already arrived.  In truth ...we never left anywhere to get to this place.  We were already here. At least when we say those words:"I have arived"...they help to put the mind's seeking tendency and the need to go somewhere to sleep.

Breathing out, stepping down: I am home

This present moment is our home.  It is what we are truly seeking whether we know it or not. When we recite "I am"  we are focusing on everything we are and everything we need at the deepest level. We bring ourselves out of mental places and into the experience of being. Home is peace and reconnection to that deeper level of Self, of being...what we are.

Breathing in, stepping down: in the here

Right here...not 'out there' somewhere...not in the mind or some idea we have of where we ''should be"...in this step, this inhale, this place, this circumstance...no matter what it offers, on this part of the path...this place we are planting our foot down ...is the only place we can be. Here! 

Breathing out, stepping down: in the now

Right now...not in some moment up ahead or in some moment we lived before...both of which are only mental concepts ...but in this moment right now, which is really the only time there is...we step down into Life. 

Breathing in, stepping down: I am solid

In this moment we recognize our physical form ...we see there is a part of us that is physical...that is solid...our body, our thoughts, our circumstances etc. We accept this as we place our physical foot down onto the physical path.

Breathing out, stepping down: I am free

Here we acknowledge what we are beyond form; who we are beneath the body and the ego...We are Spirit...and Spirit, the formless essence, cannot be contained or limited by form.  It is free...we are free.

Breathing in and stepping down; breathing out and  stepping down : In the Ultimate I dwell

Here we acknowledge our unity with all that is...with this Ultimate  Source of everything, with God and we dwell here...we live in this moment here. We are truly  present.

Hmmm! Again my intrepretation.  You decide what those words might mean to you. 

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