I Don't Want To Close!

 It all starts with your feet on the ground, your eyes open, saying "I don't want to close!" 

Michael A. Singer

I feel myself closing in reaction to certain life circumstances...to the accumulation of them at least.  I am forced to realize that I have hit maximum closing becasue I started getting chest pain again yesterday after a stressful incident, ( something my mind judged as stressful) . For weeks now, I could feel the other components of the  physical reaction of closing.   It usually starts in my gut ( the other brain) as a twisting knot. I feel my jaws clenched, my shoulders up close to my ears, the sloping of my body forward ( iliopsoas response to stress... an instinctual protect - the- vital -organs reaction to a perceived threat), I drop my gaze and automatically switch into cold mechanical mode which my daughter absolutely hates. I cringe and turn inward...a tight ball of shrinking flesh. I have before this point of chest pain been feeling "exhausted and drained" by the last three weeks dealing with a life threatening crisis in my sister and my daughter's issues. ...not to mention all the other little or medium sized stressors. ( again...these are judgements made by mind). And now I have chest pain off and on.(My angina, with the exception of a few break through clusters,  has been well controlled for almost three years now with the medication I am on and my yoga practice...being "relaxed" is the answer for most issues in our lives).  

I haven't had enough opportunity to relax...last night I only slept for 2 and a half hours because I was up all night texting back and forth with my daughter. So I am tired which makes a wonderful situation for the  pain to emerge.  It comes and goes...not just with exertion.  It is relieved by the nitro but I am so mentally overwhelmed by all the external stressors that I am reluctant to take it...part of me, literally, wants to just succumb to whatever my heart is doing in protest, "I can't give anymore!" .  If I am sick...I don't have to deal with everyone's demands of me. Yes mentally and emotionally I am completely overwhelmed and this closes my heart, almostly completely...figuratively and literally. Hmm!

I found myself scribbling this down today as I listened to the podcast linked below, (Just a scribble...not yet a poem. )

 Tightly, the fingers of my resistance 

wrap around my heart, 

squeezing, squeezing, squeezing 

as the obedient Balifs, 

follow the commands

of the gavel pounding mind.

  I curl forward, 

shoulders hunched up 

towards my ears,

jaws  and sweaty fists clenched tight.

My defendant points to my shrinking form

as farther evidence that I am nothing more 

than a frightened animal

lal laying down submissively

      in front of  the  predators' fangs,

in an act of learned helplessness.  

The jury gasps in pity.

The authoritative judge

reclaims  the courtroom 

of my experiencing,

c     condemning, 

      in confident tones,

 the events and imperfect beings

that flicker past,

images on a video screen,

 that can be played over and over again, 

evidence for my victim status,

while the the struggling "others" who 

have been accused 

of poking and prodding 

at my insides with their own pain

call out their self-defense verdicts, 

to no avail.

The judgment will be  made  

in little me's favour,

T    Circumstance and the others 

      will be made guilty

And with every "bad, wrong, 

and shouldn't be"

I hear,

instead of feeling the relief of justice,

my heart shrivels and constricts

tighter, tighter, tighter

until I can not breathe.

until  just a slither of light,

a tiny breath of Life,

 can flow through.

This rigged trial

is too much for 

my weary consciousness. 

I must raise my hand

and let the jury know

that it is I 

that have hurt myself.

I have  closed my own heart, 

Those "others",

they are about to 

condemn and sentence,

are innocent players

in this game I play

against myself.

Dale-Lyn, 2023

Sigh!  All is well.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe (March 26, 2023) Learning to Stay Open.https://tou.org/talks/

Samskaras and the Need for Anesthesia

No wonder people so often speak about the benign numbing effect of their addictions: only a person in pain craves anesthesia. ...Ask not why the addiction, but why the pain.

Gabor Mate,  The Myth of Normal (Knopf, 2022), page 220

I have to have a difficult conversation with a loved one today or tomorrow, a person who craves anesthesia.  I was waiting for this person to be stable enough for me to do so but I also knew there was just a slim window of opportunity before old habit energies took over again.  Those energies of denial, suppression, repression, avoidance, relief seeking, desire for numbing,  fantasizing, storytelling etc have already begun. So...it is time to share my truth.... not that I have any power to affect change in this individual.  It probably will have little effect.  I do it only because it is my truth and I need to share it before I surrender fully to what is. 

Sigh! Reminded of samskaras again. So I felt pulled to come to the camera again to talk about the buried pain energy that causes all our suffering.  (And as you can tell by the way I look...it isn't an ego thing that brings me to the camera, that brings me here.  It is something much bigger.) 

All is well in my world 

Craving The Ocean

 

There are no decisions; there is only interaction with what is in front of you. Decisions come because you have attachments, desires and fears, The only thing that will help you is to let go. If you let go of your stuff-there are no decisions- there is just life. 

Michael A. Singer

I am craving the ocean.  That is something that I want  to look at from all angles.  

First, I need to look deeply into the craving itself and remind myself  how desire is the root to most of our suffering. 

 Craving is Desire and Desire is Escape!

Desire or preference  is as Michael Singer says, a way of compensating for our blockages. When I crave something I am desiring...wanting something other than what is...in an attempt to escape from the reality that is triggering old pain inside me.  Hmmm! I definitely want to escape my present reality...those events and circumstances that are and have already taken place.  Wow! Why do we try to escape things that have already happened when there is nothing left to escape from and there is no changing what happened?  For example, my sister is recovering wonderfully on the physical level...miracle really.  The crisis with her health is done and gone...yet I watched part of me wanting to escape it the whole time it was happening and that part of me is still telling me to "run!" That time of her being on a ventilator between life and death is over...it took care of itself...and even if it didn't there is no going back in time to make it "not happen".  Is there?  Yet that is where a lot of our energy and attention goes doesn't it, ...to escaping and resisting that which has already taken place?   

Event Or Experience?

I also have to look at the difference between event and experience when I think about this escape thing we tend to do as humans.  The event was the actual  crisis that unfolded and also the immediate emotional and internal experience that arose in me as a result. In itself, it is not an experience...just an objective, impersonal, life happening. It had nothing to do with "me"...absolutely nothing. If I was clear of samskaras and open...it, as well as the "natural"  feeling of fear and sadness, would just blow right through me and be gone. The event  would last for a blink of an eye, in my body and psyche and then be gone.  The experience happens when whatever is happening out there, and "naturally" in here, becomes the prolonged and "unnatural" focus of our awareness.  If it gets snagged up in our old pain on its way through, reactivating memories and fears and grief; if it becomes about "me" rather than "it"; if we as these little reactive entities begin to resist  by clinging to or pushing away the event based on our likes and dislikes, wants and want-nots......it goes from being a life event to a personal experience. In this case, not a pleasant one.  It becomes about what the event[what Life] did to me.  It becomes a problem...an experience of suffering. 

Multiple Events Leading Me Here

This life event was just one of many that came at one time and I felt completely overwhelmed and burnt out...not from the number of events but the multiple and varied experiences I was going through. I want escape from "all" these experiences!  Each event tapped into and stirred up old samskaras within me...old wounding...so instead of just blowing through, all the events  got snagged up and caught up in "me" .  "Me" was kicking and screaming. It was messy and chaotic, exhausting and draining. I was experienced-out. I do know what samskaras were tapped into by each of the so called "crisis'" I was dealing with.  Old "unworthiness", and "born to be punished"  and fears of hurting and being hurt were yanked up from the depths of me. It was a lot...especially at one time.  But maybe, if all the events  didn't  happen at once, it would not have led to this "craving the ocean" and this inner reflection I am participating in now. I am aware of what needs to come up and these events have led to experiences that made me even more aware of the need  for "me" to get out of the way, so these old samskara blockages can be released.I don't want to be blocked and if it takes multiple crisis' to hit me at one time to unblock me...bring it on! (Not that Life is singling me out or anything...and not that I wouldn't say yes to some easier lessons in the  future lol...but heck "I want"  is in the way of me getting what "I need", isn't it? 

Why the Ocean?

Yes...I prefer, desire and crave the ocean.  I love being around the ocean.  It reminds me of the universal breath.  It is healing and soothing.  I feel peace when I am by the water. So when I am stressed out, I begin to dream and fantasize about escaping to the ocean.  Well, I live on the east coast and I can get to the ocean in minutes,  but in my escape fantasy...I prefer an "unfrozen" landscape...one where there is soothing sun and warmth. It is really hard to lay down on the beach where I live right now and just listen to the waves. I have a bit of an aversion for hypothermia and frostbite. Actually, I crave the sun too...that healing energy ...and right now where I live in Canada, the light though definitely lovely and getting stronger everyday, is not quite bright enough  to zap up my serotonin levels. :) (My body and mind would really benefit from a good dose of serotonin right now.) I want sun and warmth.  I don't want anymore darkness and cold.  I want the ocean and rest and healing.  I don't want any more challenges and hardship. So I dealing with some hindrances: desire and aversion. When I think of the ocean, however...I just feel "good"...(another dualistic  term that feeds desire). 

Renounce? 

So, I am still often caught up in this unwise and unwholesome way of thinking. Yet, if I said to myself "Okay you crave the ocean...that is bad...don't crave and renounce it...definitely don't feed your craving tendency by going to the ocean," I am not being wholesome or wise ether.  I am just suppressing and repressing ...putting more stuff on top of my buried stuff. What I need to do, is just be aware of these mind tendencies, these cravings, this desire for escape and realize that even if by some stroke of pure luck, I was able to go south or whereever...to sit by the ocean.. ....it would not be the solution to any suffering I may be experiencing, not long term anyway.  It would feel wonderful (and on a practical level, I do need to replenish and nurture this mind and form I have been neglecting so obviously over the last few months)...but I am evolved enough to know,  the only real lasting solution is to release these samskaras.  Without the samskaras, I will be open and free.  There will be no need for cravings or aversions. There will be no need for anything the world can provide.  I can still love it, appreciate it, learn from it, be in awe of it but I won't need it or want it to the point of craving, any longer.

Sigh! So much learning in every little experience. 

All is well!

Silent, Loving Awareness

 You are the silent awareness itself, loving awareness.

Jack Kornfield

Getting to "I Am..."

 Some day, what your life will be about, every single second of it, is to welcome everything that could ever happen so you can practice not touching it? So you just sit back there, deep inside, and get out of the way.

Michael A. Singer

A Vessel of Peace? That is what I want my Life to be...a vessel for peace to just pour through.  In order for that to happen I need to get out of the freakin way! Who has to get out of the way? The part of "I" I call "me" has to move over so that part of "I" I call "I am..." can shine forth. 

Let's recap on the difference between these two parts of "I"...

The "me" is the surface layer of "I" that the world sees.  This "me" has a name, a body with a particular physical appearance, several social roles  like mother, sister, partner, coworker, member, writer etc etc etc.  A lot of "me"s roles are based on what "me" does. "Me" is very much about the doing. Me is the personality component of "I" and that personality has been formed based upon several events that have transpired throughout  the life span of this body me is in...around it, in front of it and inside of it. Let me rephrase that...it was formed based on how those events were "expereinced"...in other words what the mind did with them and whether or not it "stored" them inside or let them go. This storing of information and the emotional energy surrounding that info has led the "me" to like and dislike certain things out there. It likes pleasure and comfort so it actively judges and determines what is desirable and what isn't...what is "good or bad, right or wrong, should be or shouldn't be". It desires and seeks things from the world that leave it feeling "good" ( a judgement term the "me" uses). What makes it feel "good" are those things that activate or remind it of the positive experiences it has stored inside.  It doesn't like pain...in fact "me" is actually more about "not experiencing pain" than it is about "experiencing pleasure".   It really, really doesn't like pain.  It sees potential pain all around it and it is constantly defending itself from in.  It attempts to  push away, deny, avoid, distract and repress and suppress.  When it does this, it is only pushing all the pain down inside itself, creating big tangled knots called samskaras.   The more painful experiences or samskaras it has stored inside the more pain potential  it will see. "Me"  sees itself as separate and vulnerable in a dangerous world full of potential pain triggers...those things that can trigger the painful experiences stored inside...so it spends most of its energy warding off , manipulating, fixing and controlling that stuff "out there" ( i.e. those 'events' of Life that it believes will bring pain or activate painful stuff stored inside) and pushing down those stored inner experiences so it doesn't feel pain in here.  "Me" is a busy little creature...working 24/7 through its entire life:  thinking and believing,  judging and doing. If we listen we can hear "me" chattering non stop inside us...telling us what is wrong...what to look out for and what to do. It never, never seems to stop. Most of us only hear and heed this part of the "I".  We think that is all we are so we obey its ceaseless commands.  That does not make us vessels of peace, let me tell ya. 

Who is this "I am"?

Ram Dass, in a Tweet he posted on February 18, 2013,  put it this way:

I am without form, without limit. I am beyond space, beyond time. I am in everything; everything is in me. I am the bliss of the universe. 

"I am", on the other hand, is the part of I in the background, in the deeper parts of "I" and is invisible.  In fact, there is often a veil between "me" and "I am", a veil of ignorance "me" created out of fear. So unless we are looking for it..."I am " stays in the shadows.  Whereas "me" is about the doing, "I am" is about the being. It doesn't have to do anything.  It just is. While the "me" is so busy, the "I am" is quiet and still.  Whereas the "me" is impermanent, ever changing and unstable, the "I am" is permanent, stable  and never changing/, While the "me" judges and reacts to the unfolding of Life circumstance and does in according to what it feels, "I am" simply   observes all of the Life that surrounds it and pours through it without judgement or a need to "do" anything about it. It  honors it and appreciates it....opening up to all of it.  It is indeed that which can allow us to be the vessel of peace we are designed  to be.   Yet "me"  is in the way! 

Let's look a little deeper inside, We will see the "me" and hear it rattling on when we do, hear what is being said, recognize the judging,  the thinking, the desire to do something. See the tendencies it has and just recognize it as the "me". Stop believing it, stop going where it tells you to go, doing what it tells you to do. Don't close when it tells you to close. Then look deeper for the veil which is made up of obstacles between you and what lay beneath them .  Often those obstacles are  our samskaras. Recognize them and just allow them to come up.  We don't have to do anything else  but get out of the way.  The "I Am"...will just shine its peace through us.

Hmmm! Sounds so easy doesn't it? 

All is well in my world. 

Talking With the Wise Ones

     There is nothing you can do with  your problems but make them worse…cuz there is no problem. There is only something you went out and touched and defined as a problem…otherwise you are aware of the unfolding of the universe.  You can do that…It is not renunciation and it is not controlling or taking . It is just remaining in the seat of conscious awareness, permitting creation to pass through  you, in  you and around you and you are fully participating in it but you are neither there or not there.

  Michael A. Singer

    What I wouldn't do to be able to sit down and have a conversation with this man. 

I have never been one for small talk...never felt comfortable with it ...always looked for something "more" in conversations.  Like lets talk about something important or nothing at all.  I am usually pretty quiet when others are talking.  I don't express or often share what is really  going on in my mind unless it is really important.  But a lot of the "important" things...like my awakening...I know, would not be considered  that "important" to others.  It would be misunderstood and deemed more than a little "woo-woo".  So I often don't share unless someone asks directly on certain subjects I had thought about a lot. That doesn't happen very often. That is why I like coming here and why I like  public speaking (and why I am pretty good at it). I can share all I kept inside for so long...what I feel really matters.  

T    There  are few out there that I can have a heartfelt conversation about Life with. Not that they are not wise, just that they think differently than I do. Most would and maybe do think I am crazier than a bag of hammers lol. I think it would take someone as woo-woo as I am to get me or  a very, very enlightened being that could see through all the crap on the surface. 

So I often imagine or dream about talking to these "wise ones" .   I dream about and imagine  talking to people like the Buddha, like Christ, like Lao Tzu or Socrates ( or any of the successive trio: Plato and Aristotle would do in a pinch) ...talking to great thinkers like Spinoza, Blaise Pascal, Michelangelo, Uell S. Anderson and Albert Einstein. ( I would really like to speak to Albert Einstein...not about numbers or physics...oh no...but just about Life). And then there are poets that have inspired me with their insightful wisdom that I would love to have a cup of tea with...Shakespeare, of course, Also Rumi, Kahlil Gibran, Tagore, Longfellow, Emerson , Samuel Taylor  Coleridge, Emily Dickinson....( and many, many more).

   II would also love to have a conversation with Thich Nhat Hanh or Wayne Dyer if they were still around; Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Tara Brach, Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield ( yeah...I think Jack would be a cool person to talk to), would be good to converse with. 

B  So many...but...right now...I am thinking the way I think and see the world is very much aligned with the way Michael A. Singer thinks and sees the world. Everything he says just hits me a certain way and I find myself saying, "Yes!  Yes! Yes!"  It would be so cool to just be able to have a chit chat with him.  I learned so much already...his approach has opened me up so much already ...but I imagine there is so much more I could learn. 

   Anyway...Someday Life may steer me in that direction or maybe it won't...who knows.  Regardless, I will continue to come here and to work on the speaking and writing  about this stuff.  And I will continue having the greatest conversations with all these wise people (who do not judge me as  just cra-cra lol)...in my dreams.

     All is well.

   Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( March 20, 2023) Pure Awareness. https://tou.org/talks/

      

Not to Seek For Love

 Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find  all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Rumi

All is well!

Universal Teasing and Teaching

 The universe is our greatest teacher, our greatest friend . It is always teaching us the Art of Peace.

Morihei Ueshiba 

Thinking again about disturbance and serendipity and the way things unfold.  Sometimes it seems that Life does unfold to tease or teach us something. Don't you think? It is more important for us to observe our minds in response to her little lessons and jokes, than it is to be caught up in the drama of it all. 

An Example Of Life Messing Around With My Head

  I was sitting in CCU with my sister last night. She  had finally fallen to sleep after many hours of intense anxiety and paranoia. It was such a relief to see her peaceful for even a few minutes.  She was holding my hand while she slept and with the other hand I was trying to stop calls for work coming in on my phone because each ding woke her up.  I was surprised that calls were coming in for the Monday I had booked already.  So I checked the system to see that I was cancelled for that day and that the one day was actually supposed to be a three day gig starting on Thursday. That would mean I did not show up for assignment on Thursday- no calling in or anything...just a no show. I obviously assumed  they cancelled me because I was a no show. My heart dropped...the thought of being perceived as unreliable triggers a whole bunch of stored stuff within. I was mortified. 

Mind Talk In Response To Life's Little Tricks

My mind began to race with thoughts like, "How could you be so dense?  How could you not see that it was a three day gig, not a one? Why did it work out this way?  You were not even intending to take this shift, in the first place, but accidently pushed accept and ended up with it.  Because you didn't want to let anyone down you were going to try to go in anyway. If you couldn't, you had it arranged that D. would go in, in your place.  Now this?  You booked yourself for days you didn't even know about. You just didn't show up? This is too uncanny to be coincidence.  You really must be cursed with bad luck. Imagine what that must look like, The thing you were trying to prevent happening, happened: you let people down; you were perceived as unreliable.  Come on.  You will lose this job over this. Any employer would want to  fire an unreliable 'no-show". This is a sign right?  A sign you shouldn't be doing this job, any job.This is a sign that life is going to keep pulling you away from any form of potential financial relief or pleasant distractions from the hard things in your life . You are destined for the challenge of poverty and stress. It is also  a sign that your mind is not working right.  You are too stressed! You are losing it! You can't work anymore...you are too unreliable. It will just get worse." 

And on and on and on, the mind talk went. It happened so fast.  All this, while I was holding my very sick sister's hand. I went from being so "not me" focused to complete "me-me" focus over this disturbance that showed up in my life at that moment. It wasn't this thing...this disturbance...it was what I did with it that brought the pain and suffering. This was a big trigger for old "unworthy" samskaras to get stirred up. This...the likelihood that I was going to lose this little job for a stupid mistake and a bizarre set of circumstances... on top of everything else I was dealing with at the time...did not seem like not a low hanging fruit I could use for my learning. It seemed very big at a time that was not convenient. It went dark and it went negative fast.  Bad timing, right?  A little too much, right?

From "Other" to "Me"...from Neutral To Negative

I left the hospital an hour later convinced that I would soon be living on the street , destined for one challenge after another.  All I could see was what was going wrong in my life.  It was so uncanny how things were lining up ...almost like they were all about getting me to suffer. Karma! It felt like way, way too much to deal with at one time. 

When I got home I was all worked up about the crisis' I am dealing with related to my loved ones and the money situation and the house situation...and now this potential loss of a job and the gaining of another "unreliable" and "unworthy" label from others.  I couldn't settle. I was snappy and tight.  My heart was all closed up into a tiny little ball.  It felt like there was a rock in my gut, twisting and turning making me sick. My mind kept going to, "How can I fix this? " It was all about what can I do to stop this from feeling uncomfortable outside.

Falling Back to Self

Then I remembered what Michael Singer said and I began focusing on  pulling myself from that to the moment with this mantra..."Don't need to fix.  Just need to allow. Sit with this and watch your tendency to want to fix it.  Allow whatever is underneath all that to come out. This is good! Disturbance is a key to open you up." 

Man...that was hard but I kept trying to just allow as I tossed and turned all night. Not very yogi like, was I? 

The Desire to Fix The Outside

When I got up, I gave into the tendency to fix it.  I wrote and sent a note of apology to the person I was supposed to replace ( according to the system) and supervisors. I took full ownership for the dreaded "not showing up for assignment" and I briefly explained why. Then, I let it go. Being brought up catholic...I am conditioned to feel a bit of relief with each "confession."  Man, I was setting myself up for getting canned by confessing to supervisors who  may  never hear of my mistake otherwise...but I felt relief. I was ready to accept the consequences.

 Then I get an email back from the person I thought I was replacing.  Apparently, it was all a mistake anyway.  I was not supposed to work any of those days ...at least not for this person.  Like really! I find out , in a weak moment, that I randomly didn't show up for a day I would later find out, because of a random mistake,  I  wasn't supposed to show up for. I felt horror and shame then relief and a sense of "awe" as this unfolded in front of me. This is much too coincidental not to have some purpose to it. Does it not seem that the universe is playing games with my head? That it is trying to tell me something?

What Life Would Say

If it wasn't for the fact that it has 8.5 other billions of humans to look after and much more important things to concern itself with, what could Life be saying with his bizarre little turn of events?: 

• No "sins" were committed here.  It was just a human error with a bit of divine intervention to make you look inside , not out.  How many times do I need to remind you that the problem is not with what I offer or seemingly take away...it is how you are reacting to it? 
• On a practical note, you really, really need to take care of yourself with some intense stress management.  You do have a lot on your plate and though you may not be able to control what I hand out, you certainly can try relaxing more....and saying "no."
• Stop bothering yourself about the moments in front of you....no matter how seemingly big or small they are? Remember there is a difference between the life event and the experience.  Don't make what I give you a painful experience. Leave it at event.
• You are doing a good job observing your mind. Now you got to put the pieces together.  What are you learning from your observations?
• Did you notice how quick your mind still takes you to "me-me" focus and how disturbing it is to go there?  The feeling you get from "other" focus, like you felt being there for your sister... the  genuine compassion and love...presence....when "me" is out of the way... is the "experience"  you really want.  I just showed you the contrast in that moment this little event took place.
• Did you notice the fear? Your fear of  appearing unreliable is a sign you got something stuck inside you that is going to be unpleasant to release. 
• You really need to keep opening up so that samskara of unworthiness can work itself through you.  I am  triggering it so it can come through.  Get out of the way and let me do my thing. 
• You are still personalizing what little me is experiencing...you slipped into victimhood pretty quickly, didn't you?  In those few moments after your realized the mistake your mind pulled in every thing it deemed as negative that was going on around you, to prove that you were indeed a victim of Life. That is just your mind playing games with you...not me! As if I have the time and energy to make it all about you....when there is another 8.5 billion of your kind to deal with, not to mention the trillions of galaxies I am in charge of. Come on!
• You noticed how quickly you went from neutral to negative...there is still that propensity in you to go in that direction. That is okay...just be aware of it.  Don't beat yourself up for it like you also tend to do...be compassionate for your broken bits that keep pulling you into darkness. Maybe a little more positive affirmations may help?
• I see you used a wise mantra to pull you away from the tendency to want to fix this.  You knew it was better to just practice sitting and relaxing into what is than it was trying to change it,  "do" something about it. You did try...good for you! 
• But the compulsion was strong to "do" something, to "fix" what happened out there so you could feel better in here.  So you sent out that email...a form of guilt relief. How did that work for you?  You confessed to a crime you basically didn't commit and now you may have to serve the time.  What would have happened if you spent more time relaxing, allowing, appreciating and learning from this little disturbance rather than doing? (and you do see that it is little right...one little blink of this little speck on a grain of salt's  eye) ...It probably would have taken care of itself, right?  I didn't do that to punish you.  I just did that to show you. 
• You have to ask yourself too: Do you really want to work at this job? Are you afraid and if so of what?  Is your "me" still getting in the way of you just doing your job without any attachment to outcome?  And what would this be like if little me wasn't in the way?  I think you know the answer to that.
• Anyway...please just take what I give you and learn and grow from it! I want to fill you from head to toe.  Let me. Get Out Of The Way!

All is well in my world. 

Sunlight Through a Pane of Glass

 Beauty streamed into my hand 

In sunlight through a pane of glass;

Now atlas I understand 

why suns must pass....

Hazel Hall(1886-1924), Sunlight Through a Window

Sitting here at my dining room table and the most gorgeous morning sun is shining in on me. I feel so blessed just to be able to experience these rays of light and warmth from something that is a 149 million Kilometres away. That is quite amazing, isn't it? It feels like it is shining  right there just for me...lol...when rationally I know I am just one of an infinite number of beings on this planet also experiencing  its life giving energy. Sigh!

This "me" (and this "I am" on which the "me" was created over) is touched by that light.  It is like it is forming  gentle fingers that  reach down to pull out some of the pain and relief  I have not had the time to express over the last week or so. My eyes are watering in response. There is so much I want to let go of.

Good news!  My sister was successfully weaned off the vent two days ago and she is recovering physically. So grateful.  Her life long recovery is just beginning, if she should choose to go there, but for now her form is stable.  Grateful to all. 

The others are "needing me" less  than they did a few days ago and though I know it is not over for them...every moment I am not needed I am momentarily relieved of  the shame and guilt that I am not able to fix it is all for them, that I am not able to end their suffering.

You didn't break it and you can't fix it is a really hard axiom for a parent to swallow. I just feel the suffering of others so intensely , I don't have the energy to deal with my own.  Even though I know that my own is the only thing I have control over and where I must go. This light streaming in on me is reminding me of that. "Heal first," it seems to whisper, "Heal first." 

Well the sun is lovely and I am grateful for it.

All is well in my world.

The Rarest Thing- Getting Out of the Way

 If you want to do something meaningful in your life, you create the rarest thing that could ever walk the face of this earth, which is a vessel of peace. You let God be here instead of you.

Michael A. Singer

Are you a vessel of peace?  Or are you like most of us: a twisted up and tangled up ball of suffering human mind and flesh? Do you welcome and honor all that unfolds in front of you or do you resist it with your preferences? Are you focusing on your own reflection or are you noticing and appreciating the bigger picture?  Who is predominantly there, in your awareness, as you tramp around on this planet...you, i.e, "little me"/ego.... or God?  Are you in the way?

The preferring mind is  the resisting mind and  resistance is in the way of  us experiencing Life the way we are here to. We need to stop preferring, stop resisting and Let Life do its thing. We need to let it all in, respecting disturbance as the teacher it is. We want God to shine through us, not our fear.

Some day, what your life will be about, every single second of it, is to welcome everything that could ever happen so you can practice not touching it? So you just sit back there, deep inside, and get out of the way.

Michael A. Singer

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe Weekly Talks ( March 13, 2023) Non Containment is Peace. https://tou.org/talks/

Relaxing Into What Is

 Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.

Eckhart Tolle

What I was inspired to put together today after listening to Michael A. Singer.  Definitely long winded and full of goof ups ( I just went off the top of my head...not always the best idea) but it is there.  Actual practice  doesn't start until 9 minutes in. 

A Speck on a Grain of Salt Existing For A Blink Of An Eye

 Let the consciousness be the  consciousness, and the world be the  world.

Michael A. Singer

One of the most impactful talks I listened to was Michael A. Singer's, Just Be Aware linked below. Man it blew me away.  I guess, I just might be waking up a bit more and the words (pointers)  were able to sink in to those places they needed to hit to move me a little more towards conscious awareness?? 

A Speck On A Grain Of Salt

It takes me back to understanding the big picture thing I wrote about yesterday. That goes like this:

• We, as  a "me"-one separate human form, are one of 8.5 billion of one species,  out of a trillion  on this planet
• we take up about 8.3 square feet of space on a planet that is 26,000 miles in circumference (which seems pretty big in comparison to our space, right?)....
• yet, 1.3  million earths can fit into the sun...
• and the sun is just one of a billion stars in our galaxy...
• ane there are a trillion galaxies!!!
• That being said, as Singer puts it, We are a grain of salt in an ocean...if that.We are a tiny, tiny speck spinning on a grain of salt in an infinite ocean

A Blink of An Eye

And we think we are the only thing worth focusing on...that we are big and important when we are nothing but a speck on a  grain of salt. We think we are here to fix and control the world  around us that has been in existence and taking care of itself for billions of years.  Let's look at our time focus.

• In one given moment someone tells you off ( well really they were just yelling...venting whatever was happening in their form with their own self absorbed mind... in the direction of the 8.3 square foot of space where you were standing)  
• This is one, maybe five, minutes, out of the sixty that makes up the hour, out of the 24 hours that make up the day, out of the 365 days that make up the year, out of the average 80 plus years that make up your life span...one minute
• The dinosaurs walked on this very same planet where your minute of discomfort occured millions of years ago and the planet itself was existing long, long before them...billions of years ago and the universe was here for God knows how long
• yet you are focusing on this one tiny, tiny  minute in the span of infinite time and space as if it was eternity. Analyzing it to death, wondering what you could have "done"...what the other person "shouldn't have"  done etc. That one itsy bitsy minute becomes the ongoing focus of attention, at the exclusion of all the other billions of years that went on before you and will go after you.  Like really? Why do we do that? It was just, as I used to tell my students before the  tests they were about to write, "nothing more than a blink of an eye in a lifetime"...and something not even measurable in the span of universal  time. 

Yet, here we are:  tiny specks on a grain of salt in an infinite ocean, lasting no more than a blink of an eye in the planet's life time...and less than that in the universe's and we think...heck we  believe ....that it is all about us??? We believe our problems are worthy of universal consideration! And we also believe we are supposed to "do" something to make this world that has been taken care of itself for billions of years better ( i.e. more comfortable and suited to "little-me's preferences) .  We judge it as a wonderful world when our preferences are met, and as a bad and unfair world when what this tiny speck on a grain of salt happens to experience is what it decided it didn't want to experience  in the  tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of that blink of the planet's  eye, it has been allotted.  Hellloooo!! Does that not sound so bizarre?

We Don't Have To Do Anything! 

We actually think we have control??? That we can , no...that we should be doing something?  We are delusional.  The planet, like I said, has been existing for billions of years before we plopped down for our  blink of an eye term . It never needed us! Things are happening naturally without our assistance all around us.  Birds are migrating, trees are leafing, flowers are blooming, the earth is getting the water it needs, the animals are doing their thing, weather is happening, atoms are bonding, tides are moving etc etc etc.  All this is happening without any help from us. In fact, if anything,  we are only in the way. We don't even have any control over our own bodies.  The heart beats without any voluntary action from us, cells divide, cells die, oxygen gets into the trillions of cells to make energy and heat, our hair and nails grow  etc Our bodies are not ours; they don't belong to some seperate "me". They exist as a part of the whole. And the whole is perfectly okay without our interference! Yet we somehow think it is all happening for us and because of us.  That what we "do" is so important. Wow! It isn't.

These amazing things, we have little to no control over, are constantly unfolding in front of us and all we have to "do" is simply be aware of it as it unfolds.  Notice what every moment is offering us as we stand or sit or lie in that 8.3 square feet around us. and notice especially how we are are judging those things and "preferring" .  Notice when our mind or body says, "I like that" and "I don't like that."..."I want that and I don't want that." Then notice how the mind tries to get us to "do" something about it. Instead of following the urge to "do" whatever we can to fix or escape the moment, we simply relax into it.  That is the key thing , Singer tells us, to relax into what is , into the awareness of our preferences, the awareness of habit mind's tendency to want to do and into  what is actually unfolding in front of us.  Relax and become comfortable with what is. 

Hmmm! 

Please watch the video below for yourself. 

All is well!

Michael A. Singer/Temple of the Universe ( March 6, 2023) Just Be Aware. https://tou.org/talks/

Karma and Current in the Bigger Picture

But life inevitably throws us curve balls, unexpected circumstances to remind us to expect the unexpected. I've come to understand these curve balls are the beautiful unfolding of both karma and current. 

Carre Otis

 I would like to explore the unfolding of circumstance in front of each seemingly ( but not so) separate body and mind. Is it random? Is it just a chaotic, order-less dropping and plopping of events here and there? Is that why some people find themselves living in the streets of Calcutta, fighting off stray dogs for a morsel of food, while others are floating in big pools, eating strawberries and cream,  in front of their inherited mansions in California? 

So I take this question back to my little life...and I know it is "little"  as is this idea of "me, my and mine"  when I slot it into the big picture.  That is something we don't do enough, though, is it...slot our little slice of life experience  back into the bigger picture? 

What is the Bigger Picture?

Michael A. Singer pointedly describes it by explaining that, we as this "separate self," are one of 8.5 billion humans. Human beings are one species of trillions that live on this planet.  We take up about 6.3 square feet of this plane twhich has a circumference of about 25,000 miles. It takes 1.3 million of these planet earths  to fill the sun and the sun is only one of billions of stars in our galaxy.  This galaxy is one of trillions. Wow! Now that is the bigger picture.

Now looking at that, how much do our little  and not so little woes matter in the big scheme of things? 

I slot my itsy bitsy self into a space between the Calcutta street person and the pool floater. This experience that this "me"  is having seems loaded a little unevenly and my mind often leans me towards the less fortunate allotment...There seems to be a lot of challenging circumstances to deal with ...boom...boom...boom...but obviously there is not as much as that  starving person in India's allotment of hardship and circumstance.  I look towards the pool floater and think sometimes...if only, if only I had a bit of what you had ...man I would appreciate my life more.  

Now...I am evolved enough to know that the person floating in the pool is not necessarily happy and peaceful...They may be lying there on top pf their whale shaped floatable device contemplating how they are going to end their life because of something that showed up on social media or over the fact that they just  lost  a percentage of the family fortune  on some gambling venture they went on when they were drunk. Or maybe they are lonely and never felt loved.  The Calcutta person, however, once he gets his belly full,  may befriend the dog, sharing with it what was fought over, and  may be grateful and happy  over his good fortune and for the fact he made a new friend. Circumstances do not make us and they do not break us. It is all about the energy inside. 

Anyway...why?  Why was that person born into the life of poverty and why was that person born into a life of material abundance? Why was I born where I was? Why is "my" life unfolding the way it is? Is it random?  Why do so called "good" things happen to some...and so-called "bad" things happen to others?  

Of course, being somewhat of a yogi, I am going to answer with one word: Karma.  Karma isn't punishment or reward....It isn't "personal" and it isn't random.  It is pieces of curriculum offered to each personally created "me" to help with the "learning" of cause and effect needed to balance the energy along the entire "bigger picture". Well, that is what I tell myself as I sit here...not fighting off stray dogs or eating strawberries and cream as I float along...but as I ...as this "little me" ...recovers and reflects on the effects of  another seemingly "gruesome" 24 hours. Once again,   I lost my focus, momentarily drifting from the bigger picture, and narrowing it down to this tiny, insignificant one of 8.5 billion humans, I call "me".  When I do that, it seems that "i"  have been randomly slapped with complicated lesson after lesson in an advanced calculus class while "my" very limited personal  mind is still trying to figure out long division. I...whoever this "me" is...reacted to it with resistance and confusion and overwhelm asking "What the Fork am I supposed to do with this? This is unfair! Are you ever going to give me a break?" And instead of ringing the dismissal bell..Life just plopped  another lesson, and another lesson on "my" lap. 

All I can do now...is ask, "Okay....what am I to learn from this? Please show me." 

There really is no sense in resisting or complaining about any of it.  The lessons are going to keep coming until we learn them. The big thing is, they are not personal!! We don't just learn them so we can get out of school...we learn them for the sake of the bigger picture....for the sake of the person in Calcutta and the person in California also spinning around on this planet we share in one galaxy of many. 

What is the lesson we are to learn, crazy lady? We are to learn to simply experience it all, whatever we are given, relax and allow it all to just pass through us.  In the bigger picture there are no difficulties or problems.  It just is what it is and it all belongs.

Hmmm! I don't know.  I am rambling again, aren't I? 

All is well.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( March 9, 2023) Moving Past Your Personal Limits. https://tou.org/talks/

A Quick Cry, Better than None

 

You know that a good long weeping session can make you feel better even if your circumstances have not changed a bit.

Lemony Snicket

I am so overwhelmed! I snuck out here before everyone woke up for a good cry.  I even sent out a text to my family explaining why I might not be able to make my scheduled visit to see my sister today.  I told them things they probably didn't need to hear about what transpired in the last few days.  My daughter's wisdom teeth extraction turned into a post operative infection that a round of IV antibiotics is not fixing. The swelling is all the way down to her chest and up around her eyes.  This is serious!  We spent the day...well she spent the day yesterday... while I looked after the baby...trying to contact providers for help and assistance...every avenue was closed for some reason...she left messages for the dental surgeon for emergency consult and they never got back to us, evist was full to capacity, night clinic bookings full to capacity, the dentist she normally sees here was closed for the afternoon. It was so frustrating!  As much as she hated to the only option was emergency and they diagnosed the postop infection and gave her a round of IV meds. Waiting for the pharmacy to open here before we can fill the script. She woke up this morning with more swelling.  I think it has to be opened and drained.  There is infection under the sutures. Worried ( and I said yesterday I don't want to worry or hope) about what this could lead to if not treated effectively.  It is getting worse. Man. Then I get a text from my other daughter, who is not doing well on a good day, and she  was told that her relationship was over with the person she was with for 14  years. I was expecting it but not "now". Then, this morning she calls me to tell me a friend, she often spoke about to me, was killed in a car accident last night. So, so sad! Oh man...all this when I am so tired I can't think straight. I can't see the sun. That is what it comes down to: What has this"me" that feels so beaten down by the influx of circumstances have to give these people in need.  This "me" is presently feeling burdened, resentful, frustrated, overwhelmed on top of feeling the pain of others. I want to help, I do, but "me" is just pooped out. I am soooo burnt out. I can't seem to get a moment's break...just long enough so I can catch my breath, get centered again, feel that positive lift like I did yesterday (the sun under the clouds),( yesterday's lift lasted for all of 2 hours maybe before it started to pour down on "me" again). (As if all these circumstances are just there to target "me" lol) Anyway...it is what it is.  I got a few minutes of "cry time" before the others woke up  and I had to deal again.  Sigh.  I want to say, "but it wasn't enough!" Oh well...I guess I did say it. It is what it is.  I can only deal with what is directly in front of me...one at a time....regardless how pooped little me may feel.  The "I" can deal...the "I am " never gets tired, does it?  "Me", like always is just in the way. Sigh! 

All is well

Some Days Must Be Dark and Dreary

 

Some days must be dark and dreary.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Rainy Day

I have been, what others described , as "off" the last few days. "You are not yourself." 

When they bring that to my attention  I smile and  think, "The last few days?  I have been off for the last few months and I have not been my 'self' for many, many years, if I ever was this "self"." 

But it is true...I have been especially off the last few days since I found out about  my sister. Even though she is comfortable and safe and well looked after despite the fact she is on a ventilator...I have been overcome with a dark heaviness. I have been feeling very negative and discontent in my moment...restless with a churning in my gut. I found myself tabulating all the hardships I have had over the years, (as if her situation was mine to add to 'my' collection of personal woes). 

I was reminded of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's words" Into each life, a little rain must fall.   And instead of being comforted by it, I found myself lamenting to my cat, who btw couldn't care less about what was going on in my life outside of feeding or patting her, "Well  someone better define how much a "little" is when they refer to Henry's take on precipitation. Is he  talking the odd shower, or this torrential down pour that has been pouring down on me for a bit too long?"  

 I couldn't seem to settle in the moment.  I was looking for something to "do" that would distract me but I was consumed by "sloth and torpor".  I didn't want to do anything. I was discontent with my environment, noticing every dust ball and thing needing cleaning or repair.  The more I noticed the more restless I got, the more my belly churned; the more my belly churned, the more  I felt I had to do something to fix it all  but I just couldn't get myself to do anything about any of it.  I was lazy with a capitol "L". 

The thoughts were negative . I spent my days expecting every thing else around me to go "wrong" or to "collapse" and ironically it seemed that it did...Every thing I touched, seemed to break (we are down to the minimum amount of plates right now) , the top of the air fryer popped off for no explicable reason hitting me in the face and I stubbed a toe or wiped out, I don't know how many times ( you know how that goes) . 

My mind kept going back to old habitual patterns of looking for escape, knowing full well there was no escape. I was stuck in a series of moments I preferred not to be in.  It was a very yucky experience. I felt like Longfellow lost in "The Rainy Day": My life is cold, and dark and dreary..."  

It wasn't until I went down to the studio last evening and did a full practice that I felt the heaviness lifting and something remotely positive emerging. There was a learning in all this. 

It seems, that as these challenging  circumstances come into my life, I am less resilient to get past them. And I feel stuck in them.  I do not "like" that feeling of being stuck in them. Why? I am starting to see, as I reflect back,  that what I am experiencing is a triggering of samskaras that are already starting to resurface on their own.  Seeing my sister in the situation she was in was definitely  a big trigger for past wounding and a lot came up at once. My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past....So much so I couldn't intellectually make sense of it.  I just felt it emotionally and physically. It was overwhelming.

 These samskaras have to come up . I know that.  I have been praying for them to come up and out of me but when they all come up at once, it is a lot to deal with at one time.  What was stored in pain comes up in pain. Still, in order to be "free" we have to get these blockages out of the way.  So though it  all feels like a big messy puddle of emotional energy emerging...and I cannot make sense of it and it feels dark and awful...it is a positive thing! Clouds are moving!  Behind the clouds is the sun still shining. We just need to get beyond the blockages to see and experience the sun. 

Another thing I realized, as I experienced this, was that I no longer use the defense mechanism of hope. That is a strange and abnormal experience to be "hopeless".  Contrary to what I have been taught during my time  nursing on the psychiatric unit, "hopelessness" is not a bad thing. Though it does feel uncomfortable. Without that shield hope provides, there is an even intenser sense of vulnerability to what is.  Hope is a mental  escape from what life offers us in this moment. It seems to serve a positive purpose but what it offers us is not real....just a future projection that does not serve the moment. 

So when people asked me, "Are you off because  you are not hopeful, she will get better." I just shrug my shoulders and answer, "I don't know".  I really don't know what the future will bring and how any of us will be in it.  I don't need to know.  That is not where my mind goes anymore...I no longer use hope to feel better. I see it as just another mind game that takes us from being fully present to what is.  

The hopes of youth fall thick in the blast....

I use to be a big hoper...and that hope used to buffer me when I was discontent with what was. Not anymore.  I do not want to be dragged from my moment and whatever shows up in by fear in the form of anxiety and worry or by hope.  What was going on with me over the last few days had little to do with the future.  It was simply that my moments...right there  and right then...were very challenging.  I had a hard time accepting them.  And  knowing (finally-after years of practice) that mentally running away from the now, was not the solution, I did my best to settle into what was and allow all of it: the resistance, the restlessness, the discontent,  the samskaras, the pain, the confusion etc. That is what we get without hope...the reality of the rain.  Sometimes it feels like a refreshing shower.  Other times it feels like a soul soaking down pour. I was just experiencing a down pour.

Now, I feel differently.  Thanks to my yoga practice, I feel something emerging from deep inside me to the surface.  I cannot explain why I feel lighter...less soaked by darkness and more aware of the sun that is there...but I do.  The circumstances have not changed, something inside me has. That is the only way this works, right?  You get that? It isn't about what comes into us from our lives but what comes up from us, is Life.   If we are getting uncomfortably wet, it is raining inside, not outside.   We are blocked. A change in things out there is not going to make us feel better.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I do want my sister to get better but what is more important is loving her and loving Life right now, the way she and it is. It is only a problem when I cannot do that. 

Thy fate is the common fate of all

Anyway, all is well in my world. 

The Play of Samskaras

 Human life is full of the play of samskaras-tendencies developed by repeated actions,

Vinoba Bhave

I know it seems that things here got dark fast talking about life circumstances that are so real and possibly challenging to even read about. But this is the reality of human life. Hmmm! It is all good. 

All is well in my world.

Facing the Effects of Trauma For Self Realization

 Among the most poisonous consequences of shame is the loss of compassion for oneself. The more severe the trauma, the more total that loss.

Gabor Mate, page 30

I am feeling pretty unbalanced right now by life circumstances and the rumbling samskaras under my surface layer.  I often feel this way, especially lately.  Dealing with the reality of a very sick loved one and her very heavy pain is not made any easier by the mess that surrounds me in this household and the evidence of farther debt. This is brought on by the taking into "my home ( look at me still so attached to "my" and "mine") others in need. My space is crowded and impossible to keep clean ( of course, I am not the greatest house keeper anyway). I feel those old inadequacy samskaras bumping around as I look at the mess.  I hear the inner voices whispering to me that, I should be ashamed for not cleaning the house better and letting others live in this mess.  That it is my fault and that I am "bad" for letting it get like this." I seek the solace of my words, my solitude, my yoga, and my learning when these voices chirp up but there is so many interruptions and seeming demands on my time and energy. ...not to mention what it is doing to my finances, that I cannot seem to "relax" enough. Today I "had to"(that is the way I perceived , rather than it being a choice)   take 2500 dollars from my credit line so someone could get their wisdom teeth out. I have no idea how I am going to pay that back...none! And there is the other stressors that have been on my parenting plate for years...children suffering and I have no idea how to help them. It feels like arrows in the gut each and every time I am made aware of that suffering. I don't want to close my eyes to it or anything, I don't ...but man it is hard to observe. The body  holds onto these experiences in the core, tightening and doing God knows what to the GI track. There is shoulder pain and jaw clenching that leads not only to sore jaws but cracked teeth. I need to go to a dentist but heck...I keep telling myself , it can wait; what this "me" needs can wait until things around it calm down a bit.  They just don't seem to calm down for long. 

This, my dear friends, is Stress with a capitol "S".  It isn't trauma but it is stress. This stress , however, activates and aggravates old trauma wounds held within us creating a more "intense" experience than there really has to be. When these things get activated, old core beliefs arise and we often  base our perceptions,  decisions and choices on those wounding beliefs...One such belief many of us share is the belief that we are inadequate or even "bad" and we have to be nice and giving and work extra hard to make up for our badness, our unworthiness , to pay extra rent for being on this planet that we don't deserve  to be on. We therefore make other people's needs more important than our own.

It is obvious that I am doing that. It is obvious that I have lost compassion for myself.  Oh man, I can tell a tale of woe...not for self-compassion purposes but to gain  pity from others.  Pity, somehow,  my twisted mind will tell me, reduces the rent I have to pay for being on a planet I do not deserve to be on.  Sigh! It is challenging to recognize how pathetic and convoluted one's belief about "self" remains  becasue of old trauma wounding. ...even when we think we have done so much work. There is so much about our trauma we need to learn to face before we get close to Self realization.

Now, I know it seems that I am taking a step backward from all the amazing teachings I learned and shared here related to getting beyond "self" to "Self"; about getting beyond suffering by relaxing and  releasing all our samskaras and recognizing that we are not the "me" that was wounded. Right now, I am talking more about "self" than I am "Self" as I read Gabor Mate's wonderful book.  I feared this would happen but I also see the need for this to happen.  We do need to understand, to some degree, how "self" was created, how "self" was injured and how "self" perceives the world because it was injured , before we can heal at the deepest level ...taking us back home  to the unwounded Self. We need to see how the broken "self" is distorting our view and our appreciation of the moment.

We need to face our traumas...allow the samskaras to arise and release if we want to realize Self. 

Facing it[ the wounding of "me"] directly without either denial or overidentification becomes a doorway to health and balance.

Gabor Mate, page 35

All is well!

Gabor Mate ( 2022) the Myth of Normal. Knopf Canada: (Penguin Random House)

Beyond The Imperfection of Our Coverings

 We all need pathways of self-compassion in response to imperfection. We all need ways and we all need to  help each other to realize that these difficult waves we experience  are not our fault.  And if we trust the goodness we can actually become the being we want to be.

Tara Brach, Healing Shame: A Guided Meditation with Tara Brach

It is only our outer coverings that are imperfect. And we as the consciousness that is staring at this outer covering and identifying it as us and therefore identifying the imperfection on it as us, are perfect. Hmm! 

We Are The Light

We, who we really are, are consciousness. Consciousness is the light that shines on an object.  The object we are, too often, shining on is our outer surface, which is nothing more than a self-created covering over all that is.  We are staring at it so hard and so intently, narrowing our focus to it,  so much so that we do not see all that is around it, all that is behind it. We think we are it.  (Michael Singer, 2023)

Focusing on the Reflection of the Mind

We, like Narcissus did,  are shining down and illuminating  one tiny reflection of who we think we are  in a vast lake and we are so consumed by it we cannot take our eyes off it to see that it is nothing more than a mere reflection. We see it as everything. And of course, the more light we shine on it, unlike Narcissus, the more imperfections we are going to see. We may beat ourselves up for each  imperfection that we notice, feeling responsible and guilty for them. That is when we may feel shame samskaras rising from the depths to the surface. The dreadful shame experience  then becomes the focus of attention pulling us down into this image until we are completely lost in our inadequacy. When we focus on this cringing feeling of shame , we begin to see ourselves as "shameful", inadequate, wrong, bad etc. 

Self Compassion When We Feel Ashamed

I am not sure who said this, but I heard that self-compassion was the antidote to shame.  In the below linked  guided meditation from Tara Brach, we are asked to show self compassion for our imperfections and are reminded that we are not at fault for them, not to be blamed, and there is no need for self-punishment when we see our imperfections. What is needed is compassion for every blemish we notice on this outer surface we call "me". Being human is tough! As Alexander Pope said, To err is human..." There is so much "out there" beyond our control, that will mark us and bruise and scar our outer surfaces. We have been molded and conditioned by all our past experiences to act a certain way, to react, to relate, and to make choices in order to survive. We make mistakes in our natural inclination to exist and keep existing!  We naturally suffer from the consequences of our choices. We do not have to hurt ourselves more with self-hate and shame.  We need to, instead, interject kindness when we catch ourselves responding or reacting to blemishes on our surface covering. 

Trusting the Goodness

Most importantly, we have to trust the goodness. What goodness? The goodness of who we really are beneath this surface covering we are so focused on. We are light.  We are consciousness.  We are all that which is looking down at this imperfect reflection.  We are not the reflection, not the object of observation...we are that which is looking. This light is pure and perfect, untainted by any of our human errors. We are consciousness. Michael Singer reminds us, in the linked talk below, that the light that is shining did not do anything wrong, it is just shining on something that did. It, does not get dirty or blemished just because it is looking down on something that appears  a bit dirty or blemished for whatever reason. This light of consciousness is pure and it will stay pure. 

Focusing On What Doesn't Matter; On What Causes Suffering

The problem is we use this wonderful light to shine down on things that don't matter. We then identify with what it is shining on.  We use it to shine down on the reflection of "me" creating a spotlight around it.  So focused is it, we cannot see all the gifts of Life we were given to experience outside that spotlight. A character emerges in the focused light and we call it "me"  and it becomes our everything. If an imperfection shows up on or around this "me" we freak...saying it shouldn't be; it is wrong, bad and so are we for having it. We increase our suffering ten fold and so unnecessarily when we react in this way. Shame can be merciless and it doesn't have to be.  We can remind ourselves of what we too often forget when we are in the throws of it.  We forget that we are not this little mind created entity with all its problems and imperfections. We are the light that is shining on it, observing it, witnessing it, and super-focused on it.  We are the light, not the object dancing around like a chicken with its head cut off in that light. If we are the light, we can, therefore, decide where we shine.  

Refocusing the Light

Yes, self compassion is so crucial in dealing with shame and other emotional energies  when they emerge upon noticing imperfections on these "me" coverings...but more important, is the need to refocus the light. We can start by dimming it some, so we are not so focused on the blemishes and imperfections on this "me" ( self compassion can help us do that). Then we slowly open up our focus, spreading  it farther and farther until we can barely see the "me" at all amongst all the other things we are noticing.  We then open up the light of consciousness, our awareness and attention, to all we have been failing to see when we  were in spotlight mode.  We use the light to experience Life fully and completely. We can use it, Singer reminds us,  not for freedom  for the self, but for freedom  from the self. Freeing the Self from self is the  most compassionate thing we can do. We can become the beings we want to be! 

Anyway, how I ramble.

All is well in my world.

Tara Brach  (2021?) Healing Shame: A Guided Meditation with Tara Brach. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlyuGSwaZQ8

Michael A. Singer/Temple of the Universe ( 2023) I am One With Thee. https://tou.org/talks/

Where God Is, You're Not!

 You do not have to struggle to  reach God, but you do have to struggle to tear away the self-created veil that hides him from you.

Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of Yogi

I am getting so close to finishing, living untethered. I am reluctant to write the last few quotes here because I don't want to put it down.  Sigh! It was one of those books that I truly needed to read.  It offered exactly what I needed on this lag of my Life practice. Michael Singer's teaching resonated with me in a way few have.  (And I have done a lot of reading and studying over the years...so that is saying something.) I do have another book waiting for me: The Myth of Normal by Gabor Mate. Though I am so excited about reading it, I know it won't give me what this book I just finished did. I think it might take me back to body and mind focus...whereas  Singer took me beyond that.  Of course, I don't know.  I was called, sort of, to read Gabor Mate's book  too.  I knew I had to get my own copy; so I did. We will see what transpires.

So I opened this with a quote from Yogananda, a virtual guru, so to speak, of Michael Singer's and someone who fascinates me as well.  I actually had a copy of the book here before I heard Singer referring to him but when I went to get it I couldn't find it.  I am using a Kindle edition as I read this book along with living untethered. 

So I am still in the process of removing the veil, and as one can tell from reading my previous entry...it is not an easy thing to do. I as "me" have to get  out of the way. With every ego sting I experience, I am reminded "me" is not out of the way. Will it ever be? I don't know but I will keep trying. Will I ever be completely free of the need for the good opinion of others? I don't know. Will I ever be awakened enough to feel like a drop of water merging with the ocean? I don't know. Will I ever be enlightened? I don't know but I will keep trying.

I will never,  I know , be  awakened like the true masters, but if I can gain even a bit of peace, a bit of freedom, all this struggle to get through this veil will be worth it. 

Now for the final words of wisdom offered so eloquently by someone  who I would deem to be a master teacher :

Surrender to the flow. Give your Life to it. Merge into it, and it will take you the rest of the way. That is the final surrender....

If you let go of yourself on a daily basis, under all circumstances, you will find what is greater than yourself. That's the way it works: Where you are not, God is. Where God is, you're not.

Michael A. Singer

It is with great appreciation and a certain sadness that I close the cover of this book that has been such an important part of my Life practice for many months. Please, please read it for yourself. 

Thank you Michael Singer for sharing your free flowing Shakti with the world. 

All is well.

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

Paramahansa Yogananda (1st published 1946) Autobiography of a Yogi. Kindle Edition

A Practice Full of Slip Ups

 

Like most things in life, these deeper spiritual states take time. Just do the inner work, and the energy will start flowing. Once the floodgates open within you, you will have all the help you need for the ascent.

Flood Gates Yet To Be Opened

Well, I guess things are bothering "me".  I mean..."me" is bothered by things. I realized last night that  these little hands inside are still doing their routine of clinging and pushing away, while they continue to attempt to push down the old samskaras as they emerge. It is funny how that works.  I think I am doing so great in my Life practice (that is what I am going to call it from now on).  I think I am so much more advanced than I actually am.   I think things are just flowing through me...the little things like other opinion and the bigger things like the suffering of others I am so often made aware of. I intend it to flow through but at three in the morning I realize...nope ...it didn't get through.  It is still there, tangled up in the mess.  I am bothered. I am closing up."

 On its journey through me, stuff still gets snagged on whatever is built up inside me. Just like blood gets caught up on the uneven plaque build up in a vessel lumen, forming clots and other blockages, these outer world observations, thoughts and emotions  keep getting snagged on their way through me. I feel the new experiences bumping against the old stuff and it hurts. Despite my motivation and my assumption that  I am "handling it", the old tendencies of pushing down and away or clinging to, still transpire.  Old voices emerge from the depths, "You need to please everyone and when you don't you are failing. You are inadequate, not enough therefore you have to "do" more in order to earn your rent here on earth. If you can't fix it..."Run! Just run from this job (you are not doing any good there,anyway),  run from the people who need you...just run! ""  Totally irrational , but those are the common, universal voices we may hear when we are aware and listening. These voices and core beliefs are mixed up in the repressed and suppressed emotional energies rumbling inside too many of us. 

Just keep letting go. No matter what happens, keep letting go.

I know they are there in this version of a human being. I want them out! I want all these samskaras to come bubbling up to the surface in some volcanic explosion, no matter how painful it might be... I want that pressure gone.  I am so sick of all the triggering and the rumbling and the earth trembling. Just release already! 

Bring It On!....On Second Thought....

And part of me looks at these experiences, when I observe that I am not pleasing others for whatever reason, when I feel the activation within me of old stuff, the "sting" ...as a positive thing.  I do.  I know, intuitively,  every opportunity like this offers a release of some of this trapped stuff. I catch myself even saying (and meaning, at the time), "Good!  It is happening. I feel the "sting".  It is coming up and I am going to let it. What a wonderful opportunity this experience is giving me to heal. Bring it on! "  

I think I am letting it all go until three in the morning when I catch myself ruminating, catch myself wondering what I can "do" to "fix" this in the future...not fix the insides but the outer world situation that is triggering me and how I can avoid feeling this way again. Then I realize, "Oh shoot!  I am doing it again. Those little hands inside me are at it again. They have not let go." 

These states are not going to happen all at once and then stay there. You'll get rushes from time to time because something opens up. Its okay if it closes back down; don't worry. You still have work to do.

Lots of Work Left To Do

So last night I noticed my mind, I noticed what my body was doing in reaction to it...that tightness in the solar plexus, the clenching of the jaw and the ticker acting up in the way it does. Everything felt so dark again, heavy.  So I sat up and I meditated...focusing on breath, focusing on the sounds I was hearing around me/near me/ in me. Then I did a body scan.  The reactivity kept pulling me back in ...away from my body focus...but I came back again and again to breath, to my body, to the moment.  My intentions was not to resist the mind stuff, it was just not to let it pull me away for too long...to keep coming back, to relax.  I got pulled away but I came back again and again and again until I felt I was "relaxed" enough to allow all of it. Then I did this thing where I breathed in an intention for "an opening" and breathed out an intention for a  "release".  I really wanted that release. There was so much intention in each out breath,  but all that came up were a few tears... a trickle rather than a volcanic explosion  But, on a positive note,  I could feel myself relaxing into all of this emotional experience brought on by the outer world ones. When I was done relaxing, I fell back to sleep in no time. So I guess, if we are measuring progress in my Life practice...that is progress. A trickle of samskara release is better than nothing, is it not? I am more mindful of what my mind is doing...that is progress too.  I guess we should expect  to take a step back for every couple we take forward in any type of practice, right? And Life is a practice!

Above all, I know, I really know,  that there is nothing "wrong" with anyone  or anything out there in terms of my experience...therefore there is nothing to fix out there. Whatever is happening to me, is mine...all mine and I need to go inside to fix it! I know, without a shadow of a doubt, both intuitively and rationally, that it is all about the samskaras. I want them gone.  But I am also realizing it is not something that is going to happen over night for me. I need patience in my practice, renewing my commitment for  true healing and realization every day. My Life practice is no different than any other practice I take on....it isn't going to perfect and it isn't going to be easy.  I am going to slip up and fall back again and again and again.  I can learn from every slip up and keep going.  

Hmmm!

Be diligent but give it time. Eventually, the upward flow will never leave you. You will become a knower of your soul, a knower of spirit. 

All is well in my world.. 

Michael A. Singer (2022) living untethered. New Harbinger/ Sounds True. Page 201

Serve The Moment With All that You Are

 The highest life you can live is when every single moment that passes before you is better off because it did. 

Michael A. Singer, page 197

Serving the Moment

So in the final chapter, Singer explains how Life is really about serving the moment in front of us, and not worrying about whether or not it will serve us. We can serve it  by simply noticing what is in it without judgement or preference, allowing it and appreciating it.  Or we can "do" something that will raise the energy of it as it passes by which could mean smiling to a stranger, dropping  a kind word on someone who needs it or offering a helping hand. We just need to remember the moment is not there to give us something ( though it does), we are there to give it something...and that something, is who we are. 

When we do something to  raise the energy, like  picking up a piece of litter off the street, as Singer offers as an example, we do not do that to satisfy the "little-me's" puny needs and desires ( that never get met anyway, right?...at least not for long) to be thanked and recognized. We do it in a spontaneous and authentic desire to make the world a better place. How wonderful the world would be if we are all self actualized in that way.

Self Actualized?

Self- actualization is the top of Maslow's pyramid and though he tended to stick to the psychological realm in his definition of that achievement, I see it as a crucial step towards the Self- realization that takes us beyond the psyche.  In  order to achieve self actualization , he often explained, one needs to be absent of the need for the good opinion of others. We don't serve others to get something back when we are self- actualized or self realized...we serve for the sake of serving,  spontaneously, authentically, and for the sheer joy it brings to us and to the world. I want that and that is the step in my life-practice where I am now. And of course, Singer teaches how our willingness  to practice relax ing in the face of less than positive opinion can speed this process along.  

Looking For Unconditional Positive Regard? 

This little job I took on helps so much in that area. There is no self esteem building based on positive recognition, let me tell ya, when one is  standing before 13-18 year olds who have absolutely little regard for your position or you for that matter. It is even questionable if they see or hear me  and others who do what I do lol. It is very, very humbling. I went into this position more than a little arrogant, thinking that I could use my years of experience and education to handle the situation and gain respect like I did in my previous position. Ha! Eye opener! I picture Rodney Dangerfield, spitting out his "No Respect!" Speaking about respect,

If your motive is to let go of yourself and serve the moment in front of you, you are worthy of great respect. 

Michael A. Singer, page 198

It is my motive to let go of "me" and serve...it truly is but "me" is not gone yet. There is still a hint of reactivity in me when I see this "lack of respect" from those I am attempting to serve.  There is still a bit of a sting. There is a triggering of old inadequacy wounds. In the beginning the ego felt the sting a lot more intensely but I am  learning to relax into it.  I am able to look out at the many before me who are dishing out the less than positive regard, and then look inside myself to see how my energy is being affected.  Many times I am shocked to realize that I am  not offended or bothered by it.  In fact, I sometimes find myself saying "Cool! This is good. This is what I need for my growth" and I find myself cooly and calmly just slipping into observer mode...not judging...just gently questioning to myself the "why" of the behaviors I am witnessing.  I don't react.  I respond, I state my expectations. I go around to each and see if those expectations are being met. I observe.  I record.  ...without judgment...and I constantly question.  "What is missing here in the service I am providing?  Why is it being resisted? What can I learn from this? Have I done everything in my power house ?  What can I do differently? Is there something I am doing or not doing that is contributing to the resistance? Am I helping or is it even my job to help or simply offer help? You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink " etc. I keep reminding myself of that and I keep giving it back to them in my round about way by basically saying, "I am here to help in the limited way I can in one day  but it is up to you to accept that help. Please know that I am not judging or blaming but I will record all that I observe. You own your behavior and your choices,  not me." 

Most importantly, I observe myself and ask, "Now that I am clear and nonreactive, is there something I can do to raise the moment as it passes by?" page 198.  Of course, I don't say it exactly like that. 

Anyway, I can see how I would never have been able to do this ten years ago.  So attached was I to the good opinion of others. I see growth in me and that is amazing. I am trying to make the moments that pass before me better.  Whether or not I am is left to be seen but at least I am trying.

It is all good.

All is well in my world. 

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

When You Get There:

 

When you get there: 

If you look out into the world, you see what's there-not what you don't want to be there.  The experience of the outside doesn't simulate any preferences inside of you.  It just comes in, passes through, and leaves you as it found you-in a state of ecstatic well-being. 

Michael A. Singer, living untethered, page 195