Changing Your Mind

 Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate.

Norman Vincent Peale

Michael A.Singer explains that there is a way to free ourselves from all the damaging thinking our mind does...we change it!  

As I have mentioned so many times, we have up to 60,000 thoughts looping through our minds on a given day and 80% of them are negative. No wonder why we are not okay inside.  Those thoughts come from the programming we put into the mind to get it to protect us from pain and therefore from reactivation of those old samskaras we have stored inside us. Our demands on the mind are just too great. We broke it with our unrealistic expectations that more or less said, "Make reality go my way.  Protect me from everything I don't like. Stop the world from hurting me!" 

The mind, wanting to do what it was programmed to do, really, really tries to oblige.  It tries to keep us happy but in order to do so it has to square off against reality and, of course, it can't win that battle. Reality is always going to be what it is no matter what the mind does.

Here we are in our unawakened states asking a now broken, neurotic  mind to save us from reality...It, in turn,  tells us what is going on and what to do about it and we listen, failing to realize that nothing can save us from reality.  Still... there it is spouting off 60,000 thoughts a day, mostly negative, and we listen to it as if it knows what it is talking about until we feel terrible inside.  

The mind knows nothing.  It is just programming.

We need to change the programming. We can't change the programming, however, until we are aware of what the mind is doing and how we are listening to it, Michael Singer reminds us,  in the podcast listed below. We need to put down the  mind, thinking and feeling and just observe it from a distance. (We are not our minds, remember, we are the one 'in here' observing). We need to notice what types of thoughts are in there and how they are affecting us. Then we need to replace that negative  thinking with something more Life affirming: positive thinking. 

When I was 18 years old and heavily addicted to my negative narrative, I came across a book that changed my life and set me on the path I am now on.  It was The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. I suddenly realized that I was thinking negatively and could see how that negative thinking was impinging on my desire to be happy. I was allowing my thinking to control me.  I could also see some light...there was a way out of this mess I created in my head. That realization has spurred me onto a journey that has led me here to where I am now.

Of course, I have learned that it is all much deeper than that but by changing our thinking to something more positive, we  are taking control where we have control.  We may not be able to control  reality, nor can we control the "automatic" thoughts the mind generates, but we can control and change our willful thoughts. 

Say someone doesn't accept your friend request on Facebook ( not sure why I used this example...I am not a fan of social media so I seldom accept requests lol)...our sick and overprogrammed and neurotic minds may begin right away with the negative thinking in response to that fairly neutral experience.  It may begin to say things like, "Oh. Oh Something is wrong.  Why isn't she accepting?  Did I do something to offend her?  Maybe she doesn't like me.  Maybe she thinks I am weird.  They thought I was weird.too.[activation of an old samskara]. I guess I am weird. She is not accepting because she thinks I am weird.  Everyone thinks I am weird. They were right...I am weird. I should not be putting myself out there just to have people remind me how weird I am"...and on and on it goes while we fall into a pit of despair. 

Now these are reflex thoughts that the mind  automatically comes up with because we have programmed it to do so, based on our samskaras. The thing is,  we do not have to pay attention to them.  We might not be able to stop them but we can distract from them by covering them with a layer of positive thoughts, like, "Hmm!  I really do not know why she is not accepting.  She may have a thousand things, unrelated to me, going on in her life. Even if she is not responding because she thinks I am weird and doesn't want to have anything to do with me...that's okay.  I will survive that.  I can even grow stronger because of it.  This could be one of  the things that are going to help me to grow, to assist me to let go of all the unwholesome tendencies inside me. Bring it on! I will be okay whether she accepts my request or she doesn't,  whether she likes me or doesn't like me. It's all good."  

The negative thoughts may continue to chirp in the background but we are no longer listening to them.  We are listening to thoughts that bring a sense of acceptance and peace rather than those self-deprecating ones that leave  fear, insecurity and sadness. 

In order to get here, though, we needed to distance ourselves enough from our minds and thinking so we could  observe and become aware of what was going on in our minds. In our practice, we do not seek to stop the mind from doing what it is doing nor do we seek to punish it or ourselves for causing so much pain.  We simply become aware of what is going on up there and we become kind and compassionate with the mind we broke, understanding why it is the way it is, just as we remain kind and compassionate towards ourselves. We don't stop thinking, and we don't try anymore to stop reality from being what it is. We just change our focus of attention. We can do that by focusing on the positive thinking, we willfully add to the mind stuff, as we tune out the negative. 

All is well!

Norman Vincent Peale (2003) The Power of Positive Thinking. Reprint Edition. Touchstone.

Michael A. Singer (2022) living untethered. New Harbinger/Sounds True

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe (January 30, 2023) Learning To Work On Your State of Mind. https://tou.org/talks/

Dancing With God

 You don't face the day, you participate in the day.  Every moment is a chance to dance with God.

Michael A. Singer

How beautiful is that?  

Those words grabbed me as I sat to listen to Michael A. Singer, in one of his weekly talks from the Temple of the Universe, today. In this lecture he was talking about the need to let the stuff that "bothers us" go...because really..it isn't the stuff that is happening out there that is bothering us, it isn't reality that is bothering us...it is what we are doing with it. We make the mistake of judging, first of all, all stimuli as "good, bad, or ugly". As soon as we place a judgement on something, the mind we trained to be a little crazy, attempts to either push it away or cling to it.  In either case, doing so does not let the natural vibration of the thing ( be it a thought, emotion, or an external experience) pass through us as all stimuli is meant to do.  We stuff it inside.  

It is obvious we are holding on to stuff when we cling to something we desire and think of as pleasant but we do the same with that which we do not want and think of as unpleasant.  What we think we pushed away, was never pushed away. When we attempt to push away something we are using all our attention and effort to hold back a vibration that was never meant to be held back.  Doing so makes us hold onto it instead of getting rid of it.  What we resists persists, right? 

All this stuffed stuff  then becomes the foundation for our self-concept. We build a sense of "me"...what I like and what I don't like...on this very shifty sand of past experience (or should I say past "judgement").  We have within us, now, seeds of things we like and things we don't .We spend the rest of our time then...trying to hold certain unpleasant seeds down, push others away or to grab and cling to things out there that we erroneously believe will cause the pleasant things within us to grow and to  to fix our insides. 

Beneath the shifty sand of our samskaras is an energy that is meant to flow up. Whether we like it or not, it will flow up! But when we are constantly pushing stuff down on top of our blockages, we keep pushing that energy down, delaying its flow.  Samskaras, old stuffed junk, is blocking the energy. 

The trick is not to dig down to the root of each samskara, Singer  says in the below video, but to just stop adding new things to push down.  If we stop reacting to what is going on out there now, judging, resisting  grabbing at the pleasant and pushing away the unpleasant...be the experience related to something like having a slow driver in front of us or a dying loved one... then the force of the energy below the samskaras ( those deep dark and painful memories or those unwholesome tendencies that have been stored in us for so long)...will have enough power to push these samskaras up and out of the way.  It will naturally release them for us, in its natural desire to flow freely.  Our job, then, is to simply stop adding new stuffed material to our blockages, to stop doing what we are doing to protect these samskaras from getting triggered and therefore protecting and defending this concept of "me". Our job is  to sit back, relax into what is and let Shakti do its thing. 

How do we do that?

We learn to relax and then we relax and release into what is, into whatever is.  We allow it all to come in no matter how it feels. We can do that much easier if we stop judging experience as good, bad, or ugly. Without judging there would be no need to grasp or push away. We won't face the day  like we are going to fight or cling to whatever unfolds in front of us...we simple lay back into it, participate in whatever Life has to offer, experience it, learn from it and let it all just pass through us. No matter what it feels like! We stop judging what we have come to see as bad, wrong or shouldn't be and see the value in all of it.

Example

We see fear and anything that triggers fear within us as bad, wrong or shouldn't be, don't we? Fear sucks, doesn't it?  The feeling can be so uncomfortable most of us will spend all our days running from it, won't we? We will do whatever we can to avoid old fear ridden samskaras from getting bumped.  We will put great effort into manipulating the outside world so it doesn't interfere with this buried pain,  We will build up our defenses.  We will avoid, suppress, repress and deny to no end. We will keep laying  layer after  layer of repression concrete over these fear samskaras, those past experiences that led you to judge fear as bad,  so they don't come up.  But the energy below them is so strong, so powerful and so determined to flow, it will break through eventually and when it does it will push every samskara up and into our conscious awareness. This fear will rise up into your awareness again and again and again. Ouch!  That is going to hurt.

We watched the Netflix movie, True Spirit, yesterday about 16  year old Jessica Watson's solo voyage around the globe.  She admitted to being terrified many, many times but she didn't run from that fear, she didn't suppress or repress it...she simply allowed it. And when those sixty foot waves took her down...triggering every samskara that might have been in her, she handled it...even though the fear was there.  Her adventure was not about suppressing or repressing, nor was it about  "facing the day". It was about participating fully in it and whatever unfolded.  She danced with God. Sure she felt at times, after being on a boat alone for 7 months, she was going crazy. ..

If your mind is driving you crazy, it is becasue the energy is trying to push the crazy out of the mind.Singer

...but she allowed it all and succeeded in ways that went way beyond the obvious. 

Pulling Out Samskaras?

We may decide that we have to dig down to those roots of fear and whatever else we are holding onto  and expose all the junk before the damn breaks...to be the ones in charge of this excavation project, but really, we do not have to do anything but stop putting more stuff on top of that which will naturally come up on its own. When we take our hands off it...it will come up in  a way that will not overwhelm us.  Source knows what we can handle and though it is certainly going to hurt ( what was stuffed with pain , will be released with pain), it will release as gently as it can. We will be able to manage it if it comes up naturally. 

But we have to stop reacting to what is going on in us and around us now...in order for that to happen. We have to stop grasping and clinging to the events going on now. We need to let these present moment things that unfold in front of us and in us ...pass through.  We need to get out of the way and leave  the big stuff to the Shakti to take care of. 

If we want to dance with God, we need to relax and release into what is. 

All is well!

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe( Feb 2, 2023) The Answer Lies Within You. https://tou.org/talks/

Unfolding

 Because you are neither suppressing or expressing, the deeper spiritual state begins to unfold. You can still contribute to what is happening outside, but your actions are not personal in nature. They are simply beautiful moment-to moment interactions with reality that are serving the flow of life.

Michael A. Singer, living untethered, page 146

Not personal.  Do we get that? Our actions do not have to be so personally motivated, or all about  what "little me" can do or get from the experience. We can just do as things unfold in front of us.  Though I am still getting caught up in the remnants of "me" as I pursue my yoga teaching on another level..the greater .part of me is doing it for reasons that have nothing to do with "me".  I just feel pulled by that part of me even as little me continues to whine and scream in the background.  It is uncanny how this is all happening lol.

All is well! 

The Way It IS Meant To Be

 There is a sacred space between suppression and expression-pure experience.

Michael A. Singer page 143

I reread this line and reread this line on my third journey through the chapter, Neither Suppression or Expression, and it hit me so hard.  Of course this was where that wisdom below the mind was pulling me  before I even read the words as  synchronicity (what Carl Jung would label such coincidence ) would have it . And all I could say and feel was this resounding - Yes! 

It is in that space, and only in that space,  where we truly experience Life...where we live. Then I read the remainder of the paragraph and I was pretty much in tears. The resonance of an inner knowing often emerges like water  from the bottom of a  well when someone or something  uses the right equipment. Doesn't it?  Michael A. Singer uses the perfect tools for bringing that water from  the depths of this so called "me" to the surface.  It is so thirst quenching!  

In this state you are neither suppressing the energy internally or expressing it externally. You are simply willing to experience the energy coming from your heart and mind. The sorrow of death and the joy of birth are both coming up inside and feeding your soul. They are touching you all the way to the core of your being. You are not touching them-they are touching you. There is nothing to do about it. It is all simply a gift God is giving you. The mind is free to think, the heart is free to feel. All of this leaves you at peace, in a state of gratitude. This is the way it is meant to be.

Imagine feeling peaceful and grateful all the time for whatever emerges in front of you...be it something the ego mind would label as a tragedy or  something it would judge as an absolute blessing.  Imagine being open and willing enough to allow it all in...feel it as if  you have been given the greatest gift even if the doctor is telling you that you only have a few months to live, and then experiencing it...really experiencing it all before letting it go.  Imagine embracing all the ten thousand sorrows that Life offers in the same way you embrace the ten thousand joys, while noticing and revelling in the ten million neutral things we barely acknowledge each day. Imagine looking at it all as it unfolds and knowing in your heart and mind that it has nothing to do with you, you are just here to enjoy it, observe it and experience it. Imagine not having the need to brace yourself, or run and hide every time the mind judges something as unpleasant. Imagine not having to spend all your time and effort  seeking those things that your mind tells you will be pleasant and will fix what is broken inside you. Imagine realizing that there is nothing broken inside you...that there is nothing but pure perfect water in your depths and it is meant to flow...to quench you, the earth and every being in it. Imagine loving it all, being in awe of  the whole entire experience of Life. I want that! Do you? 

Singer and so many other great teachers of Truth tell us that this is the way it is meant to be for us. Yet here we are struggling and stuffing and suffering as we express ourselves in the most unwholesome of ways.  We are so caught up in judging experiences, then suppressing or reacting/expressing...instead of lingering joyously in the experiencing... space that exists between the two.

I think it was B.F. Skinner ( and I am not sure of that) who said there is a sacred pause between the stimulus and the response.  It is there where our wisdom lay.  This pause is the same space Singer is talking about, I believe. We need to realize who we are is in that space. Life is in that space and that is where we want to be.  We would be better off if  we welcomed and embraced all stimuli as it comes our way, accepting instead of resisting, so we can experience Life as it all flows through...the way it is meant to be. That is living!

All is well.

Michael A. Singer (2022) living untethered. New Harbinger/ Sounds True

Allowing Fear

 

If you had no fear, you would be perfectly happy living in this world. 

Michael A. Singer

I have been busy working on a yoga page and trying to promote this clump of flesh and yet to be evolved mind ...as a yoga teacher.  I am about to teach a community class and open up my teaching in other ways. It has been frustrating for all kinds of reasons. Ego fear has a lot to do with that.  Instead of just experiencing the process without any concern for outcome...just feeling what it feels like to create and do what I feel  I am called to do...teach yoga as I learn yoga....I am still getting tangled up in psyche.  How do I look?  What will people think or say? Who am I to teach yoga and promote myself as a teacher when I still have so much to learn?  I don't know enough. Oh, that isn't good enough!  I am not good enough! People will see how imperfect I am.  What then?  

It goes on and on and on.  I just want to teach and share what I have learned and continue to learn.  I teach because I want to learn.  I learn because I want to teach.  It is a gestalt thingy. I want the pure and direct  experience of doing so whether I  look like a fool and goof up royally or if I succeed in society's terms.  Fork society's terms lol.  I want this stuff that is finally starting to flow in me to take over and do the teaching but "me" is still in the way- whining and complaining, looking for attention and doing what it can so those old samskaras don't come up.  Why?  Because it is terrified...it is afraid of fear and wants to do what it can to avoid it.

Imagine if the people who created and did the most amazing things on this planet...like finding the cure for a life threatening disease, or sending a rocket to the moon, writing  a piece of literature that reminded people who they really were under their skins and made the world a better place, or composed a piece of music that brought people to their knees...allowed their fear of fear to get in the way of them experiencing Life.  The world would not be enjoying their creations right now! 

The thing is, we need to let go of those notions of pleasant and unpleasant, good or bad, right or wrong.  Fear, basic human fear, is neither a good thing or a bad thing...it just is.  It is biological part of being human. It comes in , we can experience it , be curious about it, explore it and then let it go...or we can do what most of us do: spend our lives fruitlessly trying to avoid it. We fear fear and we attempt to avoid it! There is no avoiding fear. It simply is a part of Life but we let our minds tell us there is and we listen to  what it tells us to do: Grab that!  Avoid that!  Go there! Stay away from there! Attain this! Push that away! etc etc

Fear of fear is in the way, preventing "me" from enjoying this experience.Fear is in the way because me is in the way. Fear of fear is of the "me" and the "me" is what is really in the way. I need to embrace this fear, explore it, experience it instead of resisting it....no matter how this all turns out.  It doesn't matter.  It is the experiencing that counts. Fear is worth experiencing!

Look forward to everything and then there will be no fear…be totally accepting of Life and all it offers [even fear].

Michael A. Singer (Somewhat paraphrased)

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( January 9, 2023) Total Openness-Total Joy.https://tou.org/talk-archive/ 

Not the Saddest!

 

Not the Saddest of them all!

On reading that poem I had to comment.  It was meant to just express how the mind tells us, if it doesn't tell us we are the greatest,  that "me" is the worse off ...the saddest, the loneliest, the most  deserving victim etc. And we have trained the mind...the mirror...to reflect that victim status back to us and to help us find ways out there to solve all our so called problems by showing us what to do about it.  When really, that mirror is just a distorted reflection of reality and if we want to heal at the deepest level we must stop looking to it to show us a world it simply distorts. We have to stop asking it to tell us what to do about the mess inside us "out there". This mirror isn't magic, it's crazy!! lol We must close our eyes and  walk away! Not from Life!!!! From the reflection  the mind is giving us.

Just wanted to clear that up.

All is well

Mirror, Mirror

 Mirror, Mirror on the wall,

I am the saddest of them all.

Show me, please, what I must see

to make the world what it needs to be, 

so all the sad things fade away

and the world inside me is okay. 

Mirror, Mirror on the wall

I am the neediest of them all.

Show me, please,  what I must do

to make all those things out there come true.

What should I grasp for or push away?

What  should I do, think or say?

What minute details should I create

to build  in me a peaceful state? 

Oh Mirror, Mirror on the wall

I am the loneliest of them all.

Show me, please,  who will fix my heart

and love me wholly from the start,

filling in each fissure, crack and hole

by taking responsibility for my soul.

Oh Mirror, Mirror on the wall,

I am the most frightened of them all.

Show me, please, where safety lay 

so I can go there to hide away.

Show me when  to close my eyes

and turn away from each surprise.

Protect me with some loving arms

or at least sound your loud alarms

so I can run when danger comes 

to a place that soothes, distracts and numbs.

Oh Mirror, Mirror on the Wall 

Please? You are nothing real at all,

just a reflection of a broken mind. 

The more I look, the more I'm blind.

I close my eyes and walk away

You give me lies ; I will not stay.

Dale-Lyn, January 2023

I can't believe I am putting that up.  The remains of Ego are saying, "Nooooooooo! Don't do it!" , lol  And that is exactly why I must do it! 

Anyway...check the links on the previous entry to see why I was inspired to sit here why this came out of me. 

All is well!

Being a Rare Flower; Willing to Heal the Heart

 Spiritual growth is about fixing the heart and returning it to a state of well being. It should be clear by now that the problem is not outside in the world; the problem is your inability to handle your heart's full expression of the world. Page 141

As if Michaels Singer didn't already do a great job explaining the need for heart healing in living untethered,  he explain it even better in the podcast from, The Temple of the Universe, as linked below.  In it he explains how the heart got broken in the first place.  We broke our own hearts!!

Yes samskaras have certainly caused a lot of problems inside us but what really did a number on us is our unwholesome use of the mind.  We tend to use the mind as a place to run to in order to escape the mess we left behind in our hearts. We ask the mind to look around at the world and to come back and tell us what we need to grab or fix, what we need to push away "out there," just  so we don't have to deal with what is "in here". 

There is definitely "pain" in our hearts...there is unpleasantness and many normal challenging emotions we have judged as "bad, wrong, shouldn't be!" We don't want to deal with that, do we? So we go to the mind and we ask it to  distract us and numb us from the experience of heart; to dazzle us and divert our attention to its amazing analysing  and conceptualizing ability; and to do the impossible duty of changing "what is" into something that works for us.  The mind simply tries to do what we ask it to and does its best to create a comfortable and safe zone for us  to hang out. Despite how busy and crazy it can get  up there, the mind's creation is familiar and it keeps us from heart pain....well to a certain degree. 

But the heart is still broken and hurting, neglected and abused, calling out for our attention whenever life circumstance triggers it or bumps into it. A broken heart cannot release what it is meant to release...love, joy, peace , inspiration etc. We don't get that stuff from outside...it is inside us, where it always was  ...in the heart.  It is blocked  from flowing up and out because of the samskaras and all the brokenness that is in the way. It is the heart, not the world that needs to be healed.  We can not even begin to heal the heart, however,  if the mind is in the way and the mind is in the way for most of us. 

Michael Singer explains that the way out of suffering is all about going to where that suffering is...the heart.  You really don't have to jump to get there, you just have to stop going to the mind. We automatically go to the heart when we refuse to go to the mind any longer. When we refuse to look "out there" for both the cause and solution to all our problems, when we realize how responsible we, and we alone, are for the mess in our hearts and become willing to go to the roots, we will find ourselves  sitting  with the heart and all its pain. We have to be willing to face, not run, from that pain in order to get to the amazing stuff behind it. That willingness to go to the heart, to make it the object of consciousness, rather than the mind, is key.

Few of us, however,  are willing to leave the mind and begin this painful journey into the heart.  We have run from heart pain for so long, hiding out in all our thinking and doing, that the thought of simply being in  with that pain is overwhelming for many of us.  We would rather keep running in the hundreds of unwholesome ways that we do. We would rather keep depending on the mind to take us away like a box of Calgon.  But the mind can't heal us...it is too broken.  We are asking a broken,  neurotic mind to tell us how not to be neurotic or broken. It doesn't work.  It just causes more pain.  And where does that new pain go? Back to the heart making it  sicker than it already is. 

The only way  out of suffering is through the heart.  In the same token, the only way to experience true love, peace, joy and bliss is through the heart, as well. It is not through the mind and not through the world out there, that we will be freed.  It is only through the heart. 

Turn round and face what is in your heart. If you are willing to do that, Michael Singer says, you are a rare flower on this planet.  Instead of doing what all the other flowers are doing becasue it is "normal", you will be standing alone and doing the only thing that can truly bring you everlasting peace. You will be healing your heart. 

My sankalpa, as I mentioned before,  is always: "My heart is opening; my heart is releasing; my heart is healing and my heart is expanding."

As this becomes my priority in life, I may be an odd and weird looking flower amongst the many but I am determined to experience what is on the other side of this heart pain.  I am going to stop resisting and just sit with my heart in the same way I sat with my children when they were sick, rocking them patiently and lovingly against my chest until they were well once again.  I didn't heal them persay, I just was attentively present,  as I allowed it all to pass, embracing all of it until it did. That, I believe, is how we heal the heart.  We simply become willing and attentive to its needs.

All is well.

Every experience makes you a greater person if you don't resist it.Page 141

Michael A. Singer (2022) living untethered. New Harbinger/ Sounds True

Micahe A. Singer/ The Temple of the Universe. ( January 8, 2023) When May I Live In the Love of My Heart. https://tou.org/talk-archive/

Appreciating the Instrument

Just as the human mind is something extraordinary that can take you beyond the limit of your senses, so the human heart is even more extraordinary.  It can play notes from one end of the spectrum to another.  Your heart can go from absolute ecstasy to deep pain and sorrow in a matter of seconds.  It can raise you to heights where you feel like angel wings are carrying you to heaven, and it can bring you down to your darkest hours...what an amazing instrument you carry inside of you.page 139

I love this description of the heart that Michael A. Singer offers us.  I love looking at the heart as a beautiful musical instrument...a violin, chelo or a harp maybe. Something that can create the most amazing music...that which can move us to tears, be they tears of joy or tears of the deepest sorrow.  Up and down our hearts beat out so many notes of emotion,  creating this music  Life would be so empty without. 

Why are we not okay with our hearts then?

The trouble is you're not okay with the full range of your heart.  You want to control your heart so it only plays the notes you can handle. Spirituality is about learning to thank your heart for the beautiful expressions it is creating within you.140

We are not okay with our hearts because we only want them to play certain notes. We don't see how each note is needed in this melody. We do what we can to shut down or prevent the low or unpleasant notes from being added to the arrangement. When we hear  or anticipate we will hear what we, in our tone deaf states, believe will be painful and unnecessary we step in, waving  our flimsy batons in the air ...saying "No, no, no!" As if we know better than the heart or the brilliant composer behind the music does.  We know nothing...except that for a second or two it is sometimes unpleasant inside and we don't like unpleasant.  So we shut down or push down those notes and we destroy the masterpiece of this perfect performance the heart is giving us. We mess it all up when it would have been perfect...full of sorrow, full of joy...just as it is if we would only  let it in  and let it all be. 

What we need to do is appreciate and thank our hearts for the beautiful range of notes/emotions it is giving us to experience.  Remember we are here to experience, not control. We are not here to control the music.  We do not know enough about Life to do so. But the heart knows.  We need to learn to appreciate what the heart can do...all of it!!

Learn to enjoy your heart by ceasing to resist it, Its not about losing yourself in your emotions. It is about being willing to experience them in the same way you experience a beautiful sunset. You simply let the sunset come in...You are simply allowing awareness to be aware of what is in front of it. Sometimes it is a beautiful sunset, sometimes it it is a sense of loss...You are not clinging or suppressing it.Page 142

All is well

Michael A. Singer (2022) living untethered. New Harbinger/Sounds True

Letting Go

 Every single moment of your life you are either naturally enjoying what is or letting go of what is keeping you from letting go of what is. If you let go of the wants and fears that are limiting you, you'll always be okay. Letting go of yourself, instead of serving yourself, is the real paradigm shift. 

Michael A. Singer, living untethered ( 2022; New Harbinger/ Sounds True), Page 138

I am not quite naturally enjoying what is right now, as the poem below will attest to, but I am committed to the  process of letting go of that which is preventing me from enjoying all of life, exactly as it is.

All is well!

Cracking?

 High Waters

Cracking, cracking, cracking

the hidden waters, 

for too long forgotten, 

knock against that 

which holds them back.

A trickle, 

then a stream 

emerges  in puddles, 

up and through,

the impressions,

 left by winter's frozen grip.

Cracking, cracking, cracking...

they push

until Spring's  persistent 

intention to renew

unleashes  

the full force of something

so determined to be free.

And "me" , 

as a tiny speck of wooden debris,

once so sure of the solidity 

of that which I  rested upon,

am pulled so violently 

down and away,

Cracking, cracking, cracking...

armour falls apart in pieces.

The once contained force is strong...

my power to suppress,

 push away, 

and hold it back is weak. 

I am swept away 

with the pieces of jagged ice,

crying out 

as they tear into my flesh, 

knocking me around 

until I am dizzy.  

All I thought I was 

is now caught up 

in the turbulent flow...

and "me" 

is cracking, cracking, cracking,

as it is pulled along.

Why is it so surprising?

I have witnessed many 

changing seasons...

many freezings and

many thaws.

This gushing force 

has always been there,

though I could not see it,

hiding in the depths 

beneath  the thick barrier 

of samskaras 

which are now 

nothing but broken chunks. ...

cracking, cracking, cracking.

The flow is taking "me" away

and I am both surprised 

ad frightened by its power.

I reach out to passing shorelines,

seeking something solid 

to hold on to 

so I can pull this weary form

from these cold currents.

But alas ....

everything I attempt to grasp

slips through my fingers,

 becoming nothing but sand

I was never meant to cling to

My resistance is 

....cracking, cracking , cracking.

I have no choice

but to surrender 

to the cracking ice 

and the high waters' release.

It won't be until I let go

and stop resisting, 

until I lay back into the flow,

allowing the samskaras to

brush against me 

and naturally melt around me 

as the waters  continue to rise 

higher, higher and higher,

that I will feel 

the kind, supportive arms 

of this flow,

confidently lifting me up and away

from my old delusions of solidity.

Drifting  back 

into these  fluid arms,

I close my eyes

and breathe.

I allow myself to be

carried by nature's

ever knowing power.

I am being taken, 

the voice within 

the depths whispers,

not to destruction,

but to  freedom.

I am being carried to 

 the infinite space 

of  an ocean

 that never freezes, 

and never cracks.

These high waters

are taking me home.

I want to go home.

Dale-Lyn , January, 2023

Hmm! This came out of me as life continued to knock and knock and knock on my psyche demanding my attention today.  I thought for a bit there,  that I would crack.  Still this was determined to come out. Despite all the  interruptions and other things I had to deal with, both inside and outside, this came out. Imperfect, for sure but it has something in it I am meant to listen to.  

Man I am overwhelmed by life circumstance right now. Why?  because my ice is cracking open and all these pieces of samskaras keep bumping into me, cutting into me, shoving me up against the boulders. I am kind of confused and overwhelmed by feeling that was stuffed inside me for so long. I have to deal with that as well as the circumstances unfolding in front of me.  As my samskaras crack open and are carried away by Shakti I am challenged to stop grabbing for the shoreline and to  just lay back so I can get to that ocean! I  just want to get to that ocean. :) 

All is well!

Be In the Space

 Between the stimulus and the response there is a space.  In this space is the power to choose  our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Victor Frankyl

Hmm! Let's look at this space that exists between the stimulus ( that which triggers us) and the response ( the emotional and behavioural reaction).  This space is everything...it is who we are.  It is the  pause between the in and the out breath, our peaceful and kind essence, and it is the back row seat we always have the option to drift back to when we are too caught up in the drama unfolding on the stage in front of us. It is clarity, stillness, silence. It is a kind and loving attention which we can apply to ourselves and to the world to ensure wholesome response. 

Tara Brach explains that we all have the biological and conditioned reflex in us to be prepared to react to the negative.  We are programmed to look for the negative and potentially harmful stimuli  in our environment so we can respond.  We are always on alert and ready to do so. (Thanks  amygdala! ) As a result, we pull back and away pretty quickly when we set our hands on the hot stove of life.  In such a case there is very little time between the stimuli...awareness of that which causes or has the potential to cause pain... and the response. This can make us pretty reactive,  anxious, focused on the negative and not too much fun to be around. Often we use that negative focus and hyper alert states against others.  And we use it against our selves.  We focus our unkind attention on what is or could be wrong with us.  In fear of our own inadequacy, we often assume we will be hurt by others or the world and close off in self protection mode or we strike out before we are struck. 

But, she reminds us,  we also have ingrained in us the  capacity for tending and befriending . We have many seeds of compassion, kindness, love in us as well.  They are contained in that space between the stimulus and the response...waiting for the opportunity to sprout outward.  They are our power.  If we take the time to sit in that space...to extend it long enough for us to water and nourish those seeds...our responses  will be less reflexive and  more wholesome and life affirming for us and for others. 

We grow and are freed, the more we are in that space. Why? Because instead of getting lost in fearful, aggressive or unwholesome reactions, we put that kind attention on what really matters...not the stimulus, not the response...but the space itself.  That is who we are.

All is well.

Tara Brach (November, 2021) Meditation: Awakening Self Compassion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMkzlOhnaQU&t=1s

Tara Brach/ Sounds True (2019?) Waking up from the Trance of Unworthiness With Tara Brach. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0G_kS6XIEE&t=1s

Drift Back

 Mana eva manusyanam karanam bandha moksayoh

Sanskrit saying

Say what?

As  the mind, so the person.  Bondage and liberation are in your own mind. 

Still don't know what you are talking about, crazy lady. 

Do you see yourself as a slave to life circumstance, to belief systems, emotions and all phenomena in front of you? If you see yourself as bound, you will be bound and your life will reflect that.  If you see yourself as free, you are free and your life will reflect that. Freedom and bondage take place in the mind...nowhere else. Things outside have no effect. They are just passing phenomenon coming in and going out of our awareness.   Only our focus of attention  and our attitude will determine how free we are. 

We will come to realize this after we take on the task of observing our minds,  We will see just how problematic they are and how much trouble they cause for us.  We will see how they make no sense and really do not know what they are talking about but there they are inside us telling us this and telling us that.  And we listen.  This is what keeps us in this dungeon of an inner world.  Inside this dungeon we are the "me"...a flimsy, veil of pseudo protection that is nothing more than an idea or self concept. We spend our imprisonment doing whatever we can to protect this "me", to make it more real, secure and solid to no avail.  "Me" can be blown over with a puff of air...yet there we are struggling, protecting, defending, grasping, clinging, averting...full of restlessness and worry,  and doubt, trying to make this "me" something it isn't...real and solid. 

Huh?

Will ask you another question: 

What seat are you sitting in right now as you watch the world unfold in front of you?  The seat of being or the seat of drama? The seat of peace or the seat of disturbance?  (Michael Singer) The seat of wisdom and clarity or the seat of illusion and confusion?Are you, in other words, living in your spiritual being or living in your human being?  Are you sitting back far enough to observe not only what is going on in front of you but what is going on behind you? Or are you so close to the world's stage , you believe you are a character in that drama? 

Still not getting it

Are you suffering right now because of what is happening around you and in you?  If so, you are too close. Would you like to stop suffering?  Would you like to feel peace and joy and even ecstasy all the time  instead ? 

Yeah but how?

Trade seats.  Instead of sitting so close to the  stage that you can't help but be caught up in the drama, take the seat of observer instead. Sit back in the seat of being, of Self. There is no drama there, no suffering, no disturbance. There is just a steady flow of peace, wisdom, clarity.  You can see it all but from a distance.  What's more it doesn't bother you.  It is just something you are allowing into your awareness and something you watch leave your awareness.  Back there you are free.

What action is required?

Observe! Simply observe and notice what your mind is doing...holding it accountable. See how no matter how much you attempt to manipulate the play or the characters or the scene or the atmosphere...Life just keeps doing what it is doing and you keep suffering. Not becasue of what is going on up there but because you not letting it go.  You insist on being so close to it, a part of it when it really ahs nothing to do with you. You are stuffing it all inside as if it was a drama put on just for you. You are believing what is happening and what the mind is telling you is happening.  You are allowing all that drama to hit your stuff and you are following the mind's instructions on how to make that not happen when the mind doesn't have a clue what it is talking about. The more you listen to the mind, the more you sit where you are sitting, the crazier and more disturbed it all gets inside. 

Realize it is not where you want to be.  You don't want to keep suffering...you want more. You don't have to keep hanging out in that part of your being

Want out! Do you want out?

Either you want out or you don't. If you don't you won't. 

Wanting to be in the seat of consciousness/being...is the most important and sometimes only step needed, Michael Singer teaches. If we have  a sincere desire and willingness we are fifty percent there. If you find your insides a mess right now because of all that is going on up on the stage, and becasue of everything the mind is telling you to do or not do "out there" in order to make it okay "in here" you are probably getting ready to ask for a seat change. You want it. Once you want it you are halfway there. 

Decide to ignore the mind! Singer also teaches that a major component of the spiritual path is to stop buying into the advice the mind is giving us when it tells us what we need to fix, grab, push away or control "out there" to make it better "in here." We cannot stop it from chirping away and going on with all its mixed up advice but we have to learn, at some point in our lives, just how misleading that advice is. This is not as easy as it sounds.  We are so conditioned by our habitual tendencies to follow the mind's advice, to listen and to believe it. And  mind is so convincing in its message that the drama being played in front of us is all about us.  We will find ourselves pulled back in again and again.  We just need to stop listening. 

Go nowhere!  We really do not need to get up and move.  We just need to lean  back into the space that has always been there.  We need to drift back away from what is going on in front of us, and into who we are....the witness, the Observer, that is seperate from the craziness inside. 

Drift back into the center of who you are.

Spirituality is not something you do, it is who you are. Just permit it to be. 

Watch! You can still observe what is going on in front of you from that back seat.  Be the watcher instead of what is being watched. 

Let the  "me" go. Be willing to die in order to be reborn

 Use life for the purpose it was meant for.  Instead of fighting and struggling to change what is in front of you, use every opportunity to get rid of me, to be free.  When life circumstances are not to your liking...use that. When  the  samskaras get triggered...use that. Resist nothing.  Use it all for your liberation. Welcome and throw the remains of me out there so  you can be set free. 

Only one thing your life is about and that is to get out. Use everything around you as a means to your liberation. 

Be Who You Are. You are consciousness. You are the Witness. And when we sit in the seat of the witness a whole other universe appears for the consciousness to relate to.

Watch as consciousness shifts back to Self and you become free.

All is well! 

Michael Singer/ Temple of the Universe.(January 16,  2023) A Shift In Consciousness.https://tou.org/talk-archive/

Satchididananda (2011) Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Integral Yoga Publications

Nirodha Parinamah: Taming of Ripples

 

Vyuntthana nirodha samskarayor abhibhava pradurbhavau nirodha ksana cittanvayp nirodha parinamah 

Patanjali, Sutra III-9

What the Fork?

That beautiful expression is in sanskrit , missing a few accents. According to Satchidananda, Patanjali is saying : 

The impressions which normally arise are made to disappear by the appearance of suppressive efforts, which in turn creates new mental modifications. The moment of conjunction of mind and new modifications is nirodha parinamah. 

Wow! Zero readers today and yesterday.  I cannot even get into Google Analytics to verify that. I have been cut off from the rest of the world. And it is all good. Not suppressing this impression, not adding to the truckload of mental modifications already within me. I want nirodha parinamah .

What is this nirodha parinamah, crazy lady? 

Well, also according to Satchidananda , it means the moment of conjunction of a thought and one's effort to retrain it.

Huh? 

Basically, what I think it boils down to is: As soon as we become aware ( conjunction of the mind) with a potential samskara (new modification) we are offered an amazing opportunity to make a choice.  We can either go back to the old tendencies of suppressing and repressing...stuffing it all down...or we can gain the freedom  that comes with this awareness. Once aware, we can simply let the experience come and go.  That's nirodha parinamah. So that moment when we catch ourselves running off after a thought or experience in the old habitual ways...when we can observe ourselves doing what we automatically did without awareness...that is the crucial moment in our awakening! 

According to yogapedia, Nirodha parinamah , is an advanced stage in a yogi's journey where they have freed the mind  from citta vritti  [its attachment to thought waves or mind stuff]; where they are free from samskaras. 

Evey thing that comes in through our senses gives us an opportunity to practice letting go of this tendency toward attachment/clinging/ suppressing...including this non existent readership I am presently  seeing. It gives us an opportunity to practice letting go of the habitual pattern of creating new mental modifications when we judge what is happening around us...when we suppress it because it is to painful to deal with. Practice helps us to learn to smooth the waves that such tendencies have created so we can experience all of  Life as it is. I practice it also with my health and health seeking ( which I stopped putting any concern or  worry into. I look at professionals now telling me things that are not true  for "me" and there is absolutely no need arising in me to explain myself or to challenge what they are saying...it is amazing.  I cling to none of it!), with my parenting  ( much more challenging there) and with all the little things that come into my awareness during the day. I am really trying to observe and understand the cause of all my mind stuff so I can be free of it, so I can reach a state of nirodha parinamah which would , I assume, simply mean falling back into what I am and always was...that calm, still lake of consciousness.

All is well. 

Satchidananda (2011) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Integral Yoga Publications -page 169

Yoga pedia https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/6164/nirodha-parinama

Ripples and Samskaras

 The meaning of your life is purification...

Michael A. Singer

We need to purify! 

Just Another Experience; No Need To Make It Another Samskara

Readership is registering zero to one over the last few days and I am okay with that.  I let that phenomena: the realization of a pretty much non existent readership, come all the way in and then watch as it goes.  I am not clinging through attachment or grasping for more readership nor am I clinging to it through aversion by telling myself, "This is bad wrong, shouldn't be".  I am just letting it in and then letting it go like it is meant to.  It is an experience, just as writing this is...I have an opportunity to experience it and everything else in the world.  How can any of it be "bad, wrong...shouldn't be", when it just is? By not attaching or pushing away the realization  of no readership, it  will not become another samskara. It will not act like a second arrow bumping  into and aggravating the samskara that reverberates a sense of inadequacy in me. 

The Purpose of the Body

I heard Michael A, Singer speak today in one of his weekly talks from The Temple of the Universe which he founded way back in the 60's or 70's when he  began his own yogic "forest dwelling" experience..  He said something interesting about the meaning of the body and the meaning of Life.  First of all, as someone who taught Anatomy and Physiology for years, I was very interested in what he had to say about the purpose of the body.  It actually made sense.  He said the major components of the human organism were the special senses. Everything else...every system, organ, piece of tissue or cell is simply there to keep the body going so it can sense.  Why?  Because, he explained, senses are what  allow us to experience and we, as consciousness or  these spiritual beings who inhabit these bodies for a period of time,  are here to experience Life...all of it. As consciousness we observe whatever is before us and experience it through the body. The body offers us the means to pick up such information through our eyes, ears, nose, taste buds and our touch receptors. Experience begins with the sensory information we pick up which is later taken to the brain for interpretation. From there, at a level we cannot see or understand , it  is absorbed, interpreted and understood by the mind. 

Ripples on the surface of a clear and still lake.

It is said by yogis such as Patanjali,  the mind's natural state is clear and as  pure and undisturbed  as a still lake. Our minds and therefore our life potential is peaceful. It is from  the clear state of the  mind that we add the beginning strands of knots or disturbance.  Somewhere along, instead of just accepting  all phenomenon as valuable experience material, we begin our judging of that sensory information as good, bad or ugly and this dictates how we experience Life. We begin to want and not want and go about seeking what we want(that which is interpreted as pleasant to the senses and pushing away what we don't want (that which is judged as unpleasant). Through the judging, thinking, believing, analyzing, and differentiating  we come up with ego mind. It is from that mind state that we create  the egoic little me.  The egoic me is a mind created "thought" or "concept" that likes, dislikes and bases all its actions on that liking and disliking. Our consciousness, our beautiful, wise, non judgemental  awareness gets directed to this "concept" of "me".  We focus on it, and all its likes and dislikes.  It absorbs all our attention and energy. We forget who we are beneath it (the lake). We "believe" in it as if it were real when it is nothing more than a "ripple"in our pure and perfect consciousness...a "mental modification" as Patanjali would refer to it as.  This self is just one mental modification. (Satchidananda, page 7)

Purpose of Life: To Experience

Life unfolds in front of us and everything it offers,  like all sensory material it is meant to come all the way into body and mind ( heart)...be experienced  and then flow out.  We as consciousness are here to observe it all but because of our liking and disliking we judged certain things as "bad, wrong, or  shouldn't be"  and pushed those things down into our store consciousness so we wouldn't have to deal with them.  We close our hearts so we don't have to focus on these samskaras. The problem is not what the senses pick up, that is just experience making material, what we are here to simply experience.  The problem is with our grasping at things we like and pushing  away things we don't.  We are misunderstanding the purpose of and misusing the body and mind to feed a concept...this idea of "me". 

We are not fulfilling the purpose of Life when we do that...which is to simply experience...to let it all in and to let it all go.  Our clinging creates ripples on the  surface of the clear and still lake of consciousness.  We focus on the ripples and we cannot see the lake beneath them. Everything is distorted and disturbed because of our samskaras. We are here to be the lake , the observer,,,not the ripple. Ripples are meant to come in, be experienced and then let go of. 

Purify

We need to get rid of our ripples and our impressions so we can once again be pure like the lake. Our major life purpose, then, is to experience but because our samskaras are in the way of our experiencing...we need to make our life mission one of purification,  of getting rid of these samskaras...so all can just flow through...o we can fulfill our Life purpose. 

Hmm! Anyway, so much to say to that but I have been watching my grandson all day.  What normally would have taken me an hour to write has literally taken eight hours. Another thing I need to let go of.

All is well 

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe (January 19, 2023)  Setting Your Polestar on Real Inner Growth. https://tou.org/talks/

Satchidananda (2011) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Integral Yoga Publications

Samskaras

 I am really stuck on samskaras lol...want to understand them and release them. Hope this helps someone other than me.

And oh my thoughts go out to an individual and a very worried family right now.  May he be well, peaceful and safe. 

All is well

Disturbed? Tossed around?

 Yes, there are beautiful experiences, but they come and go. The meaning of Life is much deeper than that. Page 120

Michael A. Singer

Deeper than what, crazy lady? 

Disturbed Mess Inside

Deeper than our pleasant emotions, even human love. Of course that is hard for most of us to get our heads around because we are so busy looking for something out there to fix what is broken "in here." Things like pleasant experiences, even human love, we tell ourselves is enough  to fix, or delete the mess. At least, we convince ourselves when we become more aware of our tendencies,  these things we pull in from the outside  are enough to  temporarily numb or help us distract and get away from the disturbance inside us.

I have a disturbed mess inside me right now.  I am pretty "moody" and emotional. I am feeling negative and my attention seems to be drawn to the negative. Why? Because some particular  samskaras in my heart  have been hit by recent life circumstance and the shakti trapped  beneath them   is shooting out like a faucet with a partially clogged trap,  in its attempt to be released..

Huh?

Emotion is Blocked Energy

An emotion is caused by the shakti hitting the blockages in your heart and shooting out to release the blocked energies.  This creates enough disturbance to your normal flow that your attention gets drawn to these disturbed energies.  Emotions are a release of blocked energy.  This goes for both negative and positive emotions. page 117

Samskaras Blocking the Flow of A Determined Shakti

According to Michael A. Singer in  Chapter 24 of  living untethered, I am likely feeling "down" because Shakti energy flow is down, and that is down because there seems to be just a pin prick size hole in my heart right now letting the energy through. The Shakti on the other side of that hole is determined to push its way through, despite the interference,  making me an emotional mess.  There are big old samskaras...some past injury   in my heart center right now. It is acting like a  fat clot or some nasty plaque formation narrowing the lumen of the heart center artery.  It is getting picked and prodded by my reaction to life circumstances and this in turn is disturbing the energy flow. Shakti is building up in pressure on the other side. It will not be held back forever.  It is determined to flow.  It has to shove and push and break away pieces of this samskara to get through, pushing memories and the pain of old unhealed wounds up into my psyche .   What is able to come through in spurts and splattering gushes with the memory, is a chaotic collection of old trapped feelings of inadequacy, shame, fear, doubt and helplessness. This disturbed flow  is taking "me" away with it.   I am getting all tangled up and tossed around as it becomes my focus. Hmm! 

Old Habits Die Hard

I feel even more pain than I would feel by simply experiencing the life events taking place around me. I don't like the pain.  I  find myself going back to old familiar tendencies or habit energies...searching "out there" to help me find peace "in here".  I see myself desiring some form of redemption in external world standards...I see myself reaching for soothing pleasant experiences and feeling let down and beat up when I can not seem to grasp or cling to enough of them, I feel the unpleasant coming up and automatically I start to push it back down again. 

Sure, what I am dealing with now in regards to life circumstance is challenging but it is turned into full blown suffering and dukkha by the reactivation of samskaras...these past wounds that keep getting poked. It is the old wounding that is really causing all the problems.

But I Am More Aware

What is different now, in this stage of my evolution, is that I am more aware of  what is happening inside me. Though I still get tossed around, I am aware that I am being tossed around.  I am no longer in the normal state of not paying attention.  I am looking inward and reflecting deeply.  I am committed to healing,  once and for all. I am determine to suffer through so the heart can open and stay open. I want these samskaras out!  

Its hard to believe that our moods, attractions, and repulsions are so dependent on our past, but it is true.  In our normal state, we're not paying any attention to what is going on- we're just being tossed around by it. Page 121

I have a lot of deep wounding. So I think I am experiencing, with this sudden darkness to my moods,  a  broken or disturbed faucet flow about to become a damn bursting type of scenario,. Am I ready to handle that?  I don't know.  .I want an open heart...at all costs...which will mean dealing with some pretty nasty pain of second arrow wounding. But I am determined  to heal once and for all.  So... bring it on!  Bring it on!.

 There are much higher energy centers you are capable of experiencing, and the further you go into these centers, the more beautiful all of life becomes. But if you can't do the work with the heart center, you will never know the higher centers exist. page 120

All is well

Note: Though this chapter really made a lot of sense to me in so many ways, I still find myself confused about what "me" is and what to do about it. Several questions come up as I write this like "Who is the" I" that has the disturbed mess inside,  if the true Self cannot be disturbed?  Whose insides are we talking about...must be "me's" insides right? Because the Self is an observer looking in? Are we dealing with little "me" again?  M y samskaras are "me" injury and wounding, not Self wounding, and therefore not significant or even "real",  are they? So if we witness it all going on as Self / witness consciousness why be bothered releasing the samskaras?  If samskaras are a "me" thing and therefore not real ...how can Shakti, which is real,  be blocked by them?? I need to reflect on all this as well.

Anyway...just putting it out there.

Michael A. Singer ( 2022) living untethered. New Harbinger/ Sounds True

More on Self-Care

 

Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious.You get to choose how you use it. You teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will an will not accept.

Anna Taylor

Still working on that bit of advice I recently received. 

I am hoping that what I put here is read with a grain of salt.  I am definitely  no expert.  I learn a lot from what I consider to be great teachers and I share what I learn.  Most of what I provide, though, comes from exploring my own mind...my own internal reactions and response to life circumstance.  I learn a heck of a lot from my mistakes and I make many! I have come to view mistakes ( wrong view, wrong thought, wrong action, wrong speech, wrong livelihood etc) as positive and valuable learning tools that help to take me to the "rights". So I share what I learn from others and from my own experiences.  That, I know, is not for everyone. I am okay with that.  I feel compelled to share anyway.

So in that stream,  I will share, once again, about what I am learning about self-compassion and self-care. As I was saying in my last entry, I am very confused about the self in self care. Traditionally that self is the "me" we are trying to dissolve.  So it seems kind of counterproductive to care for something you are trying to get rid of, doesn't it? Yet ...just as we learn with compassion not to step on  insects just because they are annoying  and  in the  way...we need to learn that  we do not squish and punish the self ( even if it is just a mind-made thing) because it is annoying and  in the way. 

Upon looking deeply, I figure that the ego does serve a purpose on our journey.  We don't have to punish it; we work with it compassionately until it dissolves on its own accord , once it becomes a shadow  in the greatness of Self. 

Body often reflects the need of that self.  I have spent many days this week up all night caring for beings in need in one way or another.  I had put aside the needs of "me" ( my body and lower mind needs) for the needs of others. I neglected "me" and I even punished "me" for  asking to have its needs met. As a result, I found myself in this situation of semi-chaos...things are just messy and chaotic around "me" and me is in pain...physical and emotional.  I woke up yesterday with a cluster of chest pain that is still coming and going and instead of being able to push "me" to do more I have pretty much been confined to the couch.  

Emotionally, I have just been overwhelmed with the suffering of others and this sense of helplessness I feel in taking away that suffering even though I know it isn't mine to take away. And my old samskaras keep coming up to the surface, sometimes so unexpectedly and I often feel that pain. My outer world is a little chaotic and crowded and busy right now...so I am not having the time to practice and write and reflect like I would.  I am not having solitude.  Boundaries are blurred. My time and energy is not  always put towards doing that which nourishes me.  So that adds to the emotional disequilibrium I have been experiencing.  "Me" has so many other needs that psychologists might point out that are not being met and sometimes I feel them missing.

This is simply a reminder that we cannot deny or punish "me" in our quest to be more evolved.  I pushed myself too hard and too far.  I neglected my own needs. We need to recognize the needs of "me" while me is still around and to  meet,  the wholesome ones at least, in a healthy way.  Self compassion is key. 

Anyway, still do not understand completely and maybe I never will but I will share any insight I gain to whomever might benefit from it.

All is well. 

Dealing With the "Me"

 May you[and I] be filled with loving kindness, held in loving kindness. May you [and I] realize loving kindness as our essence. May you [and I] be happy.  May you[ and I] be well. May you accept yourself just as you are. [May I accept myself just as I am]. May you[ and I] feel peaceful and safe. May our hearts and minds awaken and be free.

Tara Brach 

What do I do with me?

I am having a hard time with understanding what I need to do with "me". I desperately want to dissolve the personal "me" so it isn't in the way any longer.  I see the trouble it causes and how it prevents the energy of who we really are from coming through.  I do. I see how we get all tangled up in "me" stuff to the detriment of being able to experience the amazing flow of Life, with all its coming and goings, in a clear and peaceful way. I see the unnecessary suffering that "poor little me" and all the samskaras and habit tendencies lead to for ourselves and for the world.  I don't like "being trapped in "me". I want out. I want to awaken, be Self-realized and enlightened...as woo-woo as that may make this all sound. I want to be free from all this suffering or dukkha that too many of us consider "normal".  I want to be clearer and wiser. I want my  speech and my actions...what I give the world...to be wholesome. I want to be detached from all the "drama" personalities bring about. I want to experience Life through the clarity of witness consciousness not from ego. I want to get away from "me".

The Conundrum

Yet, though I am studying and learning and practicing how to do this, I constantly run in to a conundrum. These questions come to light: Am I doing this right? Am I supposed to just drop "me" like a pair of dirty socks? Or is there some part of me that I am supposed to nourish, nurture and  care for? To look after? To stand up for and protect? I am learning that Self-compassion is necessary for there to be other compassion yet I am also learning that really there is no separation between Self and other. So how do I deal with "me"?

Desperate to Be Free of Me

Now I know that self ("me") and Self are not one and the same.  Self is who we really are...the witness consciousness...that which is everything. It is this part of us that never changes, never dies, always "is"...doesn't get wounded or disturbed by what is happening to us or around us. Before we are fully aware that we are  merged with witness consciousness...before we are completely yogic...there is this wounded "me" we need to deal with, however. In the process of realizing the woundless Self we need to deal with the wounded self...do we not?  The "me":this personality, this body and this mind was wounded ( even if these things and the wounding are just perceptions). In the process of realizing that which can not be harmed, we are still dealing with that which we believe can be harmed and  therefore  we are experiencing or have experienced harm. Thus the samskaras. Can we be free of "me" as long as these samskaras keep getting poked inside this "me",  constantly dragging us back to the perception of "me"?

Complete Self-Denial, Not the Answer

Th Buddha himself tried denying "me"...and detaching from me by ignoring the needs of body and mind.  He tried starving himself, not sleeping , and even flogging himself ...in hopes of getting rid of his attachment to this "me"...but it didn't get him anywhere but deathly ill.  If his body and mind were to succumb to this type of "me"-deprivation...he would never have become the Buddha.   He would never have awakened or become truly Self-realized. 

Until we totally get the unreality of self, how much do we deny it? 

Hmm! Though I am far from undertaking the level of  ascetism  the Buddha attempted, there seems to be a level of self-denial  in my process that is unhealthy. This  body and mind I am in still has needs and wounds that keep getting triggered.  I still hurt.  I have been trying to deny them...push past them and give all of " me" away to the point I am exhausting self and becoming so depleted I have little left to give.  I have so little physical energy, joy and peace in me. I made, it seems,  everyone's needs more important than my own. I don't have what psychologists would call "healthy boundaries" .  Someone calls me in need and I go.  It doesn't matter how tired I am or how much I am giving up to go...like my practice for example or my sleep or my meals or my limited funds or my space or my energy.  I just  go or I give!  If I don't act I absorb the suffering of the other as if it was my own and it will haunt me.  I am so full of the suffering of others I don't have time to deal with anything inside this "me". I give so much I deplete my energy.  

"What about me"?

Sometimes a little voice will emerge in my head saying, "What about me?" and I will squish it so quickly and somewhat angrily with, "Well it isn't about "me"!  My goal is to get beyond me. Me doesn't matter...it is only in the way. Go away "me"...go away! " 

Others will approach me and say, "You look exhausted.  You are doing it again.  You are giving too much.  You need to learn to say "no" and set some boundaries for yourself.  You have rights and needs too. You deserve to be cared for too.  You have to look after yourself."   And I will just look at them with a sense of spiritual superiority and smile as I think to myself, "They don't yet  understand that "me" and "self" are just mind made things in the way of what I am seeking. They are not as evolved as I am." 

Imagine! That is how all this "getting -past -"me" thing goes on in my head.  And I and some other people tend to think I am such a giving, compassionate  person!

Being A Martyr Is Not the Answer

Contrary to what people might say, this doesn't make me a self-less, kind and giving spiritual person...it makes me an unhealthy martyr. Martyr's are not evolved beings...they are people trying to gain something ego boosting through their so called sacrifices. Through my "sacrifices" I am trying to create order and peace around me so I can feel comfortable inside. I still have this mixed up notion that I will only be able to be ( or deserve to be, maybe) at peace and be happy if all those around me are at peace and happy. I am erroneously trying to create, fix and manipulate a certain peace in my outside world so I can have peace in my inner one. I am also trying to escape my own suffering by focusing on the suffering of others.  On top of that, I am trying to gain spiritual brownie points so I awaken faster e  And I am really not helping the other by doing what I am doing.  I am enabling probably more than helping. Their suffering is there to help them grow. By taking it up as my own, I deny them that opportunity.  

I know, through the Buddha's journey,  self-denial and ascetism  is not the path to Self-realization. There is a gentler and much more effective approach we can take. Self-compassion is  key! 

Accepting and Being Kind to "Me"

 Eventually the "me" will be dissolved but in the meantime, in the earlier stages of self realization that most of us will never get beyond, while "me" is still in the picture, maybe we have to treat "me" like an ignorant and needy child.  Maybe we need to be loving and kind to it instead of always wanting to deny it or  punish it like I seem to have been doing.  Maybe we do have to do, as the psychologists suggest,: set boundaries and ensure its rights and needs are met. Maybe in our quest to understand that there is no individual self, just one united Self, we need to treat this idea of self in the same way we treat the idea of other.  Maybe we need to show just as much loving kindness and compassion to "me" as we do to those so called "others". 

Undeserving?

Why is that so bloody difficult to do? Why is self compassion so hard? Why is nurturing ourselves not a priority? I suppose there a thousand root causes to this resistance wrapped around every samskara still stuck within us. One word stands out as the source of suffering for me ( and possibly for many others) and that is "undeserving".  Within those wounds are some messages that  chirp that we are undeserving as an individual self; that others are more deserving. Some core belief gets triggered with every samskara bump that says that, "Me is bad wrong or inadequate and therefore undeserving of having its needs met". And the messages we receive on our spiritual journeys that explain the necessity of getting rid of "me"...of how it is only in the way....may actually trigger some old samskaras in us that echo this message even louder.

Message Revealed and Reinforced  From Departing Samskaras

Despite all my confusion about how I should handle "me", I know I am doing something right in my practice and with my motivation and intention to wake up because old samskaras keep coming to the surface.  And these samskaras are not only releasing pent up emotional energy when they come up but they are also releasing this message into my mind. I am hearing, along with the wise words of enlightened others, that I, as a "me", am inadequate and undeserving. I think that is also why I may be overdoing it with the giving, and pouring myself dry, why I am having a hard time being compassionate with my lower self. I am listening to the mind's messages again.. 

Anyway, as I was contemplating this and looking to meditate on it, I came across this loving kindness meditation for self from Tara Brach with the above affirmations in it. I recommend it for anyone struggling as I am to be kinder to self as they attempt to diminish it for Self.

All is well. . 

Tara Brach (2019?) Meditation with Tara Brach: Developing Self Compassion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYk-MldGDWA&t=1070s

Stepping Back to Observe With Willingness and Motivation

 With the light of perfect wisdom, dispel the cloud of ignorance.  Subject to decay are all conditioned things.  Practice with diligence. 

The Buddha's last words

I want to practice with diligence. What about you?

One of the things we are reminded to do through our practice, be it a yoga practice or a dharma practice or just a life practice...is to step back into witness consciousness and observe.  Take a step backwards, create some distance between Self and "self", between what seems to be happening and what is etc; while we detach and let go of our wrong views and mixed up ways of seeing . We replace ignorance and confusion  with clarity  as we observe what is happening on the stage we erroneously believe is us, and on the world stage before us, which erroneously believe isn't us. ...without getting all tangled up in it. 

Taking a step back,  we observe our mind and heart patterns.  We observe what we have been doing that is not working as we travel along on our hero's quest for happiness! We seek to drop the veil of ignorance so we can experience the wisdom that is there for us to embrace. 

Enlightenment, Eckhart tolle reminds us in Laughter Breaks Through the Ego, is all about "light".  It is a discovering of light inside us, the same light that is shining in all of us, a light that will remove darkness,  "the cloud of ignorance".   It is also referring to our ability to become "lighter",  in terms of  achieving a lack of heaviness which means freedom. Enlightenment is Self realization. 

To awaken, like the Buddha did, we need to be willing and motivated to look inside our hearts and minds. This motivation will require the development of  a "courageous heart" and the of use " heroic effort".  We need to see how we have been seeking happiness in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways and to understand we  are only suffering more in the long run from our misguided attempts. 

Why should I , being subject to decay and death, subject to change keep seeking that which is subject to decay and death, keep seeking that which is subject to change? In these great cycles of birth and death where is freedom and happiness to be found?

The Buddha

We are all looking for freedom and happiness whether we know it or not. How do we find it?

Well, we are hopefully getting that the method we have been using to date, of clinging and resisting, doesn't work.  Right? So if we want freedom and happiness, we need to be willing and motivated enough to change our patterns of relating to our inner and outer worlds. We start by observing what those old patterns are and then who is the One observing?  We observe from the spaciousness of  witness consciousness

It is certainly difficult knowing what to do when all that commotion is going on.  The only lasting solution is to realize that it is the same you noticing it all. You are the one who is aware that your thoughts and emotions are shifting. It happens to us all the time.  Just relax and be the one that notices.  Be the one who sees the many-this is the path to self-realization.  Michael A. Singer, page 115

In The Buddha's Life and Journey with Joseph Goldstein, we are reminded of Joseph Campbell's mythological description of The Buddha's awakening under the Bodhi tree. We can apply those stages to our own awakening.

We can recognize our call to destiny. Suffering often is that call, that catalyst that says:"  I don't want to do this anymore, like this. It isn't working.  I am suffering more from my misguided attempts than I am finding happiness. I can't run from what is inside me any longer...it only creates more pain in the long run."

Then in the second stage, the great renunciation, we let go of our wrong view, our mixed up way of looking at the world, our tendencies that do not serve and we become willing to release those samskaras we have clung to.  We loosen our grip and stop clinging. We stop resisting what is. 

In the third stage we enter the great struggle.  We struggle, because we are motivated to do so, against the powers of delusion and illusion. We remove the veil of ignorance for the clarity of wisdom. 

And finally we awaken...seeing and understanding that which is ours to see and understand. We understand clearly the cause of suffering and the solution for it.. 

Goldstein reminds us of these lovely words from Henry  David Thoreau,  I went out to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach., and not, when it came to die, discover that I had not lived. " 

What is your motivation for practice? Why do you want enlightenment or Self-realization? 

My motivation for being here...is my desire for wisdom and understanding. I want to front out the essential facts.  I also have a desire to be happy and at peace so I can help others be happier and more peaceful. I believe there is quality to this motivation regardless if I ever help another soul or not. I guess my motivation makes my actions successful.

The quality of the motivation is a much truer measure of our actions than their success or failure...Dali Lama

It all starts with stepping back and observing the process and how we are in it. 

All is well.

Joseph Goldstein /Be Here and Now Network. The Buddha's Life and Journey with Joseph Goldstein https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW7_twGZJRs

Joseph Goldstein/ Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, The Example of the Buddha,https://tricycle.org/magazine/the-example-of-the-buddha/

Michael A. Singer ( 2022) living untethered New Harbinger/ Sounds True

Eckhart Tolle/ Namaste Publishing ( ) Eckhart tolle Laughter Breaks Through the Ego. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyUG5KnutTo