From Martha to Mary; From Mary to Martha

 "Martha, Martha", Jesus answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed-or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. "

Luke 10: 41-42 NIV 

Sigh!  Yesterday morning I woke up as a Mary, sitting and being peacefully at the feet of Truth.  Today, I am a Martha. (It just hit me why the housemaids in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale were called "Martha" lol). I woke up reacting to life with "upset and worry", feeling guilty for my inability to "do" the way the little voices of conditioning tell me I should, Old health related samskaras are also being poked and prodded by my present set of circumstances.  

It is like I have dissociative fugue(split personality)  or something. The personalities of Martha and Mary are fighting to be dominant inside me.  :) 

Mary  (sitting back in her dreads):   "Don't worry.  Be happy!" 

Martha  ( running around,  wringing her hands replying  in a highly strained voice):  "Oh you lazy fool.  We need to do so much around here to make life better for us and others. Look at this house and yard  that needs to be spring cleaned and made somewhat habitable.  Look at these bank accounts and what we owe.  We need to work and I cannot get this body to work the way I want it to without you!! Get up off your lazy butt and help me. "

Mary  (smiles offering her frantic sister a peace sign):  "It isn't important Sis...none of this is important."

Martha (with face turning a combustible shade of red sputters): "Not...not important?? How can you say that?  Oh my goodness...you give me chest pain!"

Mary: Just relax.  It is all going to be okay.  The chest pain is nothing...just let it go.

Martha: Let it go? You do remember that we have a heart thing, right? We might be having a heart attack and you are telling me to just let it go??? I don't understand you.

Mary: We don't know what it is and that is okay. It is likely just a muscle strain and even if it is more... does it really matter?  Like really? We will know when it is time to do something and we will do it then if it is called for. Even if we miss that window...does that matter?  The body doesn't matter Sis...It is just a suit of clothing we are going to take off when we go to bed. And we are all going to go to bed eventually. You need to relax. Like really...chill. 

Martha (straightening and holding her chest): You want me to chill? ( puffs of smoke coming from her ears) Do you not remember what we went through...what we lost...how we suffered because of you and this body that doesn't want to work?  How we couldn't get the help  we needed leading us to where we are now. We let so many people down! Looks like we might be back there and you are okay with doing that all over again?  Well I am not okay with that! We were doing so well...working and earning some money, feeling useful and productive. I don't want to go back to that struggle again! You might have liked having the opportunity to do your thing but it near killed me. And my dear sister, we are not going to bed now, though you could spend your bloody day there.  We are in this life and we  need to take care of this outfit we share so we can live it productively. 

Mary (with a look of kind compassion on her face): Oh my dear sister...it is all okay.  What happened happened.  We learned and grew from it.  Yes...I flourished but even you learned. We grew leaps and bounds because of the challenge our contrary body gave us and because others did not validate us and support us in the way you thought they should. We are exactly where we are supposed to be now as we were then. We do not know what will happen to this form.  We don't need to know. Let's trust Life and the Big Guy, k?  It is all good. And yes we need to love and honor this body we are in as long as we are in it and we will.  But being worried and upset over it doesn't help...it takes us away from what is important...this moment and being fully in it. It is okay Sis.  It really is okay. (Smiling and pointing to the guest in the chair) Even He says so. 

Martha(blushing and dropping her head, visibly relaxes a bit): Oh you crazy nut...what am I going to do with you?

Mary (Winking before sending a look of unconditional love to her  big sister): You are going to do nothing about me or anything else until the moment tells you too, if it tells you to. You heard Him. He said I was the one that chose rightly and this peace will not be taken from me. I want the same for both of us. So just relax, with me,  into what is,  and enjoy the show. 

Where did that come from?

Not sure where that came from lol. I guess it was inspired by the fact that I woke up worrying and confused over this pain and upset over not being well enough to take a call for work. 

Learning by  not learning  from chest pain

The pain in my chest persists as do the other symptoms that go with it.  For the most part, it makes so much sense to me that I just over strained the pec major muscle in my chest. Why? For the most part it is on my right side...duh!! If only I  could get it into Martha's thick head that  was the case. I could push myself to do things  while I pampered the muscle somewhat  until it recovered. Really...I know that a strained pec is no big deal. It would not stop me and I would waste barely more than a thought on it. Yet,  I find myself Marthaing over the question, "Is that what it is though?"  

 Martha: Questioning the Pain Scientifically 

I have been feeling so wiped out with this- a muscle strain doesn't wipe you out unless it is the muscle in the center of the chest that is strained. I looked after my grandson yesterday and man, I didn't think I was going to make it through the day. Also, a muscle strain is not going to increase the pain just from standing, or will it? (Well gravity, maybe, plays a part.)  I am okay when I am sitting...not so when I am walking or laying down on my back. When  I stand and walk around just a bit,  I feel the weight on my chest...though it is mostly on my right it is in the center of my chest too. The pain is also inconsistent where it would probably be consistent in a muscle issue. The intensity  depends on the amount of exertion I do. Sometimes it is crushing. Muscle pain does not vary like that does it?  Then I question: Will this type of muscle strain make one short of breath?  I can see that it may...if the muscle over the lung is inflamed and a little heavier than normal there is going to be decreased chest expansion and therefore diminished inspiration ability. So that could explain the shortness of breath I feel when I walk around or lay on my back . A muscle strain won't affect BP and pulse though. My pulse and blood pressure were consistently down over the last couple of days. (May have been down prior to this but I haven't checked my BP in months). Resting pulse is 49 according to my watch...no big deal...but it is dropping below my self imposed alarm of 45 during the day. I could handle that if the blood pressure staid up with the bradycardia but it doesn't. Systolic is in the 80's and even into the 70's. That explains the overwhelming fatigue and periods of dizziness.  I know these numbers well.  I know this fatigue and SOB well.  I have lived this for years and this is what caused me to noseplant in the past leading me to decrease my hours at work and to eventually leave all together.But I seemed to have gotten past it. I was feeling so much better and doing so much more. Martha does not want to be back here! Martha wants to work, to "do"  because she wants to impress all those voices in her head that tell her she should be more productive. 

Mary: Questioning a Deeper Meaning for the Pain

Sigh! Anyway, one thing I can do now,  that I could do in the past  when my body was being so contrary towards Martha's wishes (:)),  was "write". Do you think the universe may be steering me in that direction with all the obstacles it puts in front of me when I try to go elsewhere? Is that how the universe keeps us on tract? Right now, I am fine as I sit here writing but  the symptoms get very noticeable when I get up.  So I can not work or teach yoga...I cannot clean or fix up the yard.  I cannot even, unfortunately, look after my grandson :( ...but I can write.  That writing appeases Mary, big time, because of what I tend to write about and it even appeases Martha to some degree because I am producing something.  Of course, Martha would be a heck of a lot happier about it if I got paid and recognized or praised for my writing . Mary, however seems to be the  wiser of the two and just goes with what Life gives her.  She is more aligned with the deeper  Truth. Mary's faith and wisdom will eventually soothe her big sister into stillness. Won't it?

All is well. 

Indeed Only One

You are worried and upset about many things but few things are needed-indeed only one.

Luke !0:41-42 NIV...from the parable of Martha and Mary

I woke up this morning with this very powerful reminder coursing through every inch of me and the words came out like a wise and confident guru in my mind. I heard/thought so clearly, "I don't need anything." I knew in that instant of awakening, as I lay there,  that I truly didn't "need" anything from this world.  I don't need to work nor do I need to "not work". I don't need a body that works 100 percent and I don't need a body that doesn't work 100 % for secondary gain. I don't need health  and I don't need illness.  Heck, I don't even need to stay physically alive and I don't need to physically die. I don't need a committed relationship and I don't need to be out of a committed relationship.I don't need to be with other people and I don't need to be alone.  I don't need to be rich and I don't need to be poor.  I don't need the good opinion of others nor do I need their less than favorable opinions ( for ego reasons).  I don't need a nice clean and comfortable show house nor do I need a home that is run down demonstrating where I am in regards to life circumstance right now.  I don't need things to always work out nor do I need them to keep being so challenging. I don't need  others around me nor do I need to be alone. I don't need to put effort into my appearance nor do I need to deny my outside appearance. I don't need to be a hero and I don't need to be a victim. I don't need to be happy and I don't need to be sad. I truly, truly don't need anything form this world! 

I woke up with that so clearly in my mind and I came out here for my morning practice looking for something to listen to and I randomly chose the video listed below from Eckhart Tolle. In the first few minutes he shares the line from the parable of Martha and Mary. And it is like OMG! I once again. felt the tingles of serendipity running through my body 

There is only one thing I need (any of us need) and it isn't "out there".  It is in here .. .Mary knew that and chose to sit at Jesus' feet 'doing' nothing.  Martha did not know that and she "worried and upset" ran around mindlessly trying to do something Jesus would praise her for. Instead of  offering praise, he reprimanded her for her "doing"  because she had lost sight of   the "one thing" tin that doing and complaining  

I realized this morning as I lay there absorbing the thought ( before  I even came to this video) that it is the evolution of my consciousness from object focus to a transcendent one, what  Tolle refers to as "space consciousness" in the video, that I need.  It is the only thing I need..  The only thing that truly matters is that "I wake up."  

Hmm! The wisely evolved person (which I am not at this point!) doesn't care if they are poor or rich, sick or healthy, unemployed or working, living n a run down shack or a beautiful mansion.  The wisely evolved person's joy and sense of purpose is not dependent on the ever changing conditions of this crazy, busy world.  They are peaceful and fulfilled no matter what is or isn't happening "out here" because they know the only important thing is what is happening inside. 

The day before yesterday, after doing a lot of upper body resistance in my yoga practice (probably aggravating old muscles not used to that) , I found myself  "worried and upset" about the ice on my walkway.  So I went at it with a shovel.  I mean I went at it....pounding, chopping, lifting.   It was very hard physical work and I found myself, about 15 minutes in to the activity,  suddenly experiencing a great deal of chest pain and other physical symptoms that often go with it. I stopped and did an ECG reading on my FitBit watch...it was inclusive and the symptoms subsided a great deal ( the pain did not go away but it did diminish) when I rested so I debated about getting back at it.  Something inside said "No! Not a good idea. It isn't that important." So I listened and abandoned my mission.  I concluded that it was just a mild exertion induced coronary vasospasm  ...no big deal. I didn't even need the nitro.

The chest pain, however, an hour later  crept across my right chest and into my arm pit getting quite annoying ...so much so that during that evening's yoga class I found myself unable to do many of the poses ( I usually gently try and push each pose to the point of discomfort regardless but I couldn't even put my arms down) .  When I went to bed I couldn't take a deep breath or lift my arm. I half  concluded then that what I was experiencing  and what I experienced  after the ice attack activity  was not coronary vasospasm but a torn pec.  So I was relieved but annoyed. Also more than  a bit confused.  The pain progressively got worse leading to more confusing symptoms as the night and the next day went on.  It was fine when I was doing nothing but when I got up to do anything...even just walk it would suddenly become worse and hard to breathe.  At some points of activity it was even "crushing" and I really couldn't breathe well. It was like WTFork? What is this.  The "worry and upset" took over again...for a bit and just a bit.  

Though I did question to myself and others if this was indeed just a torn pec and not something more serious like a cardiac thing or a pulmonary thing...I, out of nowhere, was overcome with this sense of peace.  It suddenly became "So what? So what if it it hurts.  So what if it is something serious? So what if it kills me? I am not going to worry about it.  It isn't that important.  It really isn't." Now...I wasn't being stupid.  I wasn't going to let it go forever untreated.  I had made up my mind if the pain got worse or if it didn't subside with an NSAID I would take my nitro and go in etc.  But even that was not important.  What was important was that I realized how unimportant it all is...all the "upset and worry" I used to put into this health and body...unimportant.  Pain...unimportant Physical life...though amazing and beautiful and worth experiencing every minute of it...unimportant if we are not doing what we are here for.  What is important...the only thing...is waking up. 

I am quite sure this is just a pulled muscle and that might be why it seems so unimportant but I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that something in me is waking up every time I realize that there is indeed only one thing that is important. I need only that!

All is well.

Eckhart Tolle ( July 19, 2022) The Most Important Thing in Our Lives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NacNuEgU9yc

A Conversation About Fear

 As long as fear is driving your life,  you don't have one. 

Michael A. Singer

Life is sooo scary and hard!

Life is not meant to be a frightening challenging thing.

It isn't? 

No, Life is just a platform for learning and growing.  Fear  gets in the way of you seeing that and experiencing that.

Fear? What does fear have to do with what happens to me?  Fear is normal, It serves a purpose. doesn't it?  

Sure...for the Gazelle on the Serengeti it serves a vital purpose.  It keeps it alert and on guard for predators so it can act in an instant. Fear keeps the Gazelle  alive. But you are not an animal  on the Serengeti Plains, are you? You are  from a much more evolved species in a much more controlled and safe environment.  You no longer have that  constant threat to your physical survival looming over you, do you? Yet you still spend your days on hyper alert, waiting and watching  for some predator to come and swoop you away,  as if  there is always a pride of hungry lions hiding in the grass. You spend so so much energy, so much effort hiding away , analyzing your environment, doing what you can  to keep the grass from growing around you so you can see clearly at all times and by being ready to run at the faintest  flick or twitch. 

That's crazy. I know I am living in a lion free zone.

Do you? Your cortisol levels are  high enough to prove differently.  Your sympathetic nervous system,  always ready to send a surge of adrenaline through you, is very similar to the vulnerable Gazelle's .  All it takes is that phone to ring , for that person to address you in a certain way, for the world to expect something from you, to make your  ears go up, your pupils to dilate and your heart to thump wildly in your chest as your muscles prepare to fight, freeze or flee. You are always looking for and  finding signals from your environment that tell you its time to act/react. Your mind jumps in with: "You are up. Do Something!" and  you suddenly  find yourself  standing  naked and exposed in a circle of potential predators. The lions are the other people out there that may judge you, reject you, hurt you with their cutting words and squeezing pressure.  The lions are the circumstances that  seem so much bigger and more ferocious than you,  leaving you feeling helpless in your vulnerability.  The biggest lions are the ones in your head. No, there are no hungry predators waiting to eat you , but your mind and your body  believe  and act as if there is. What you are experiencing  is not a threat to your physical survival, but a threat to your psychosocial survival? 

Psychosocial survival? Why would I react so strongly to threats to my psychological and social well being? That won't kill me. 

Because this "me" you created in your mind is the most important thing to you. It is where you focus all your attention. You think you are it. You feel the need to do anything you can to protect it. All your energy goes to building and making it stronger and  the world safer and more compatible with it so it endures,  because you fear you will be nothing without it.

Huh? What the fork are you talking about, crazy lady?

Well you see yourself, as does most the population,  as the particular  body and personality that has your name, your job, your family role, and your personality.  You see "self"  as the body, mind and personality that lived a particular story, lives in a particular house ( or doesn't), drives a particular car ( or doesn't), earns money in a particular way ( or doesn't). The survival and well being of of this "me", you are so sure, depends on how strong and well buffered it is...its ability to stand up to the psychosocial lions. The preservation of your psychosocial identity depends on your ability to fight or get away from all those unpleasant and potentially threatening things out there in your psychosocial world.

What makes certain things threatening to this idea of "me"?

Anything that makes you "uncomfortable" inside...anything that reminds you that under all these protective , but useless, shells of "me"ness,  you are not okay inside.

Not okay inside?

No, you are not okay inside. What happens out here is really not the problem you are so hypervigilant about running from or protecting yourself against.  The problem isn't even "out here".  It is "in there". The problem is that in you...you stored some nasty junk.  In your past, you may have experienced natural and real terror after being  tossed around in the proverbial  lion's jaws. Instead of  allowing that very natural fear to arise in you and pass through you, you may have  pushed it all down.  So even when you got away from the lion and were free you didn't shake and tremble off the remaining adrenaline and cortisol as the Gazelle would have done...you stuffed it all down and in. You didn't release it and let it go. You stuffed the painful experience inside. It created a big knot of pain within you. Now you do not want to feel or aggravate this painful knot.  You do not want to experience that pain again.  You spend the rest of your life in fear that it will get poked and disturbed. This fear then  leads you to crave things that will keep it down and to avoid things that will bring it up. 

So doesn't fear help me to stay away from the things that make me uncomfortable inside? Isn't that a good thing?

Yes, fear will help you stay away from the  things that make you uncomfortable...up to a point.  But then you may begin to fear fear creating a vicious cycle of pushing down and pushing away. The energy and effort it takes to keep you comfortable and safe inside is so draining and it prevents you from living a full and complete life. It will prevent you from doing what you are here to do.

How?

Well, your purpose here is to discover who you really are.

Huh?

You...who you really are is not the little "me" you are so focused on protecting and keeping safe.  Sure that "me" is in there with you but there is something greater, a little deeper, that is watching and observing this me fighting and fleeing and freezing in reaction to the environment around it and in it. You are that something too.  You are really the non reactive consciousness that is observing the very reactive "me".  You are awareness of "me" and of Life and of everything that is unfolding in this moment.  You are not fear but the  witness of it.  The problem is that fear is creating so much drama for the little me that the You, that is consciousness, is drawn to it as if it were a soap opera.  You, as consciousness, are glued to the mental dramas of little me and  are so busy watching it, getting so caught up on all the fearful dramatic things going on with this "me, " that you don't see what is going on around it or outside the fear. You don't see the moment as it is, Life as it is or You, as you truly are.  Fear keeps you from being present in the  moment.  You miss the moment.  You forget to simply be in it. You forget that you are simply awareness. 

So what am I supposed to "do" about the fear if it is in the way? 

Well the problem is not in the doing.  It is in the being.  You don't have to do anything about fear. Fear is natural...just let it be. It will come and it will go if you do not get in teh way of it. You need to just be you too. The more you simply are in the  moment, fully open and present to it and all it offers, the less you will be  lost in fear. You simply are. It isn't so much that fear is in the way...your resistance to fear is in the way. 

How do I know I am being who I am, that I am mastering Life's lessons?

You determine how present you are by how much you can sit or stand in a  fear or other discomfort  producing situation without reacting...without fighting, fleeing or freezing. If you can open up to fear and let it pass through you , you are doing pretty good in spiritual evolution terms. If you find yourself resisting...giving into the urge to fight, flight or freeze, to push down or away  or to cling to things that you think will make you feel more comfortable inside... then maybe  there is still a lot of fear running your life. More practice may be  required. Simply being aware that you are aware of fear and how you are responding to it is an amazing achievement in itself. 

Are there techniques that will help me become more aware so I can deal with fear?

Yes there are techniques.  Relax. Learn to relax in the face of anything. You can not be relaxed and resistant at the same time. Meditation and mindfulness practice are also proven techniques that work. Know though that it isn't so much the mastery of the technique as it is the willingness to be open and aware that counts. Being willing to look past the surface layer of "me" to the deeper layer of "Self" is a crucial step.  Being willing to practice being and staying open to all Life offers despite the  fear is essential....Eventually we will be able to fall back into the Seat of Consciousness  and stay there while fear, like all things, blows right through us without disturbing us in the least.  Then we will transcend it for peace, joy, love , the  reward for lessons well learned. 

All is well!

Inspired by:

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( April 18, 2023) Remaining Conscious in the Midst of Life.https://tou.org/talks/

A Little Validation

Be present as the watcher of your mind- of your thoughts and emotions as well as your reactions in various situations. Be at least as interested in your reaction as the situation or person that cause you to react. 

Eckhart Tolle 

I had to come back after listening to today's talk from Michael Singer.  It was like it echoed what I just wrote about.  I woke up this morning feeling so messy and uncomfortable inside and came here to write about it before I listened to the podcast. When I listened it was like OMG...is this man reading my mind before I even think my thoughts lol? Serendipity again.  Is the universe reminding me that I am exactly where I am supposed to be in my Self-realization process? The more committed I become to the learning and growing, the more these little serendipitous things seem to  happen to support my learning. 

My life feels like such a mess right now and I am reminded by Singer's words that it is all a part of the process, testament to my willingness to go deeper.  I am simply shining the light of awareness, of consciousness on that which I refused to see for so long. As long as I am witnessing , observing what is going on in me ...I am less likely to blindly react to what is going on "out there". There is so little I have to "do" but sit in consciousness and witness...witness the mess inside me...witness the weeds emerging through  the surface ...witness what I tend to do with them or at least what I feel compelled to do with them ( react) and instead just watch.  Witness what is happening to the layers and layers of earth I have attempted in the past to bury them under...observe... and instead of running around to stop it from blowing away, instead of  clinging to any false sense of protection I once clung to ...do nothing but watch as each layer  gets blown away or stripped away by this or that.  Then I just sit with the painful feelings that were once hidden there as I get closer and closer to the roots of "my" suffering, of suffering in general...doing nothing but observing. The mind, trying to protect "me", will still chirp and chatter about how I should react...keep clinging to the outer stuff that stops me from feeling, push away that which will leave me feeling uncomfortable...bury, bury, bury the truth. I just won't listen...I won't go there or "do" that. I will sit with the uncomfortable and be comfortable doing so. I will allow those root energies to emerge in their own way, at their own rate and on on their own path.  I do not need to react to any of it.  I can just witness.

Man...this learning is so cool.  It might not always feel so good lol...but it is cool! 

All is well in my world. 

Michael A. Singer/Temple of the Universe ( April 16, 2023) Letting go of Reactive Energies. https://tou.org/talks/

A Messy Garden

The wound is the place where the light enters

Rumi

 I woke up a few minutes ago feeling so raw...well maybe with an awareness of how raw I have been feeling lately. This healing, this Self recovery, is really like a debridement of layer after layer after layer.  With the removal of each protective but unhealthy exterior coating, tender spots are exposed...and it is like, "Oh man.  Is this what I was hiding in here under that layer?  Is this what I have been really feeling and experiencing under the shells I have created? This sucks!!  No wonder why my mind did everything it could to keep me from it!"  

These weeds of challenging emotion were always popping up through the surface of my psyche but instead of digging down to pull them out at the roots, which is the only way to remove a weed, my mind just got me to cover them up with layer after layer of whatever I could find "out there" that would make me look presentable to myself and others. I buried so, so much! I created a very thick and heavy layer over these weeds and in my desire to finally heal, to get to the roots of suffering for myself and others,  and to reach who I really am,  there was a lot to get through  It is not the memory I am recovering so much (that is still somewhat vague and distorted) but the feeling knots and tangles wrapped around these core messages,  in the way of me having a fluid energy release, that I find myself dealing with right now, you know? The messages they are wrapped around are so brutal, so nasty...it is like how can anyone think that of themselves? I would never think that of another living being, yet this is what I really think of my individual self?  How can anyone feel like that and not know it? It surprises me to realize how broken this "me" is under every layer that gets debrided. It surprises me but it would surprise others more...those who see me as the layers I wore, those still identified with their own outer surfaces have no idea about the degree of "brokenness"  I am dealing with as this "me". How could they?  It was all hidden so well.

Well...I am sick of the pain just having the weeds pop out causes.  I am even more sick of all the work I have to do to keep hiding them. I am sick of suffering and I know in order to get beyond it, I have to go through it.  I have to get to the roots ... in my store consciousness and gentle expose them...examine and embrace each root before I release it. Sigh! The debriding part is easy ( though painful).  Life takes care of most of that.  Winds will blow, others will tramp through, circumstance will break my outer surfaces down etc removing the outer layers. Weeds will get fed and watered by numerous things and pop up through the thinning surface. I do not need to do much but notice, allow, look deeply for the root and gently nurture it and myself while I pull it out. Heck...if enough soil gets blown away, one doesn't have to even pull...the root will be exposed without effort from me. Sigh! I do not have to do much but stop pushing it back down! 

I imagine my life to look like a garden over run by weeds right now ...some pulled out with roots exposed, others still buried deep. Now that less and less is covered up by a false self...everything seems so messy and chaotic on the surface. It is painful.  Others have to see that now...don't they? I don't want to hide it any longer.  It is hard for me to see how messed up I am but it is so  necessary. I am not going to bury it anymore.  I want the weeds exposed so I can eventually expose the roots of human suffering.  

I need to feel the pain of this debridement  at each layer and the raw vulnerability of exposure before I can clean my garden out once and for all. A clean, clear mind will allow me to fall deeper into Self.  That is where I am heading.  I remind myself of that everytime a layer is removed and I see and feel the roots of  suffering this  "me" is holding.

All is well in my world.

Tara Brach ( January, 2023) Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness-The power of Self Nurturing. https://www.tarabrach.com/trauma-sensitive-mindfulness/

Butter On Water

 A true yogi may remain dutifully in the world; there he is like butter on water, and not like the easily-diluted milk of unchurned and undisciplined humanity. To fulfill one's earthly responsibilities is indeed the higher path, provided the yogi, maintaining a mental involvement with egotistical desires, plays his part as a willing instrument of God.

Yogananda

Hmm! Butter on water? A willing instrument of God? I would like to be like that...floating on top of undisciplined humanity without getting lost in it, being a temporary part of it but not being consumed by  it. 

Of course this statement form Yogananda's An Autobiography of a Yogi echoes the wisdom of Patanjali and of Christ. We are to be in the world but not of it...to keep our head in work and our heart in God. 

We are here to fulfill our earthly responsibilities while remembering who we are and where we come from. That is pretty cool. We are to be a part of this world while we remember that the world is not a part of us. Hmm!

All is well in my world

Parmhansa Yogananda (2015 reprint of the 1946 first edition) Autobiography of a Yogi. Kindle Edition

The Source of Consciousness

 

Man minus man equals God 

Meher Baba

It is so uncanny, how I write an entry.  Some thought will come to me as I practice, read, study, meditate and out of nowhere I will take one line, one word or one thought to the conclusion, "I have to write about that" . That will be my entry.  What happens afterwards is pretty cool...for the next couple of days I will incidentally run into others addressing these same things I just wrote about...even quoting from the people I quoted from. It is so cool when that happens.

Anyway, today I opened up to Michael A. Singer's podcast ( I check it everyday now) and in it,  he is basically talking about the Sutra I wrote about yesterday.  So cool!  Things just connected, reminding me of the "One consciousness" or what Anderson referred to as the "Universal Subconscious Mind". There is only one consciousness. And that one consciousness is God.  Singer is right, though. We need to be very careful using these terms...they get abused and the essence of what lay beneath them gets lost. 

Consciousness has a source and the source is consciousness. Michael A. Singer

Our consciousness, he reminds us, as did Patanjali,  is addicted to staring at little me with all its desires and aversions trying to manipulate and control the world so it feels comfortable. What we are staring at is broken but the light shining on it is not.  We, as consciousness,  are staring  at it so intently, at the exclusion of all else, we get lost in it...we forget we are the light shining on it and not that which the light is shining on.  Our work here is to train the mind to get out of teh way,   so consciousness  shines on Itself. The attention we focus on the "little me" self would be better served if we focused it instead on that which is noticing the little me with all its desires and aversions, all its problems etc.Yoga is something that will help us do that.

Anyway...it is all so cool! 

All is well in my world. 

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe (April 13, 2023) Step back and work directly with consciousness.https://tou.org/talks/

Non-Attachment

 You just don't go into the mind and erase the impressions. But they get themselves erased at one point. When? When you succeed in going within and realizing the peace and joy of your own Self. The moment you understand your self as the true Self, you find peace and bliss that the impressions of the petty enjoyments you experienced before become as ordinary specks of light in front of the brilliant sun. You lose all interest in them permanently.  That is the highest non-attachment. 

Swami Satchidananda 

The above quote comes from a translation of  Sutra 16 in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, by Sri Swami Satchidananda, (who I discovered, after falling in love with this translation,  was a questionable character, like Osho and other yoga gurus who came to the States. I would like to reflect on the possible motivation of these gurus, later on or in another entry).

Anyway, I digress...Regardless of the sincerity or lack of sincerity that may be  behind these words, they reveal a beautiful truth about the nature of our positive samskaras and our clinging to them.   His translation of this sutra is: When there is non-thirst for even the gunas( constituents of Nature) due to the realization of the Purusa (true Self), that is supreme non-attachment.  page 27. 

Desire Samskaras

I often speak about the samskaras within us that lead to aversion but there are many stored memories and favorable emotional energies within us  that lead us to seek and become attached to certain "outer world" things and pleasant experiences. These can become even more destructive to our Self realization mission than the "negative" ones are. Whereas our painful and unwanted samskaras may reflect the second hindrance buddhists refer to as aversion, these samskaras address the first hindrance and what the Buddha deemed to be the root to all suffering: desire. This is what Patanjali is addressing in his 16th sutra. 

When we desire  the petty things and experiences the physical world provides over our spiritual evolution, we may get lost in seeking them and fail to realize Self.  If we, hower, commit to making Self realization our priority, what we will gain in terms of "pleasure" will far outweigh  what we gain from chasing our worldly desires. This is what is referred to as the highest non-attachment. To detach from these lower self pursuits is vairagya.

Peace

Any peace we may happen to find in our outer world pursuits  will not  sustain us.  It will fall in comparison to that which we will gain when we evolve. When we realize this and  begin our spiritual journey toward Self, and achieve freedom from lower end attachment we will discover   peace but even this peace is just a reflection of the true peace on your tranquil mind. page 28 Once we can hold this peace the true experience will happen automatically. We need not do anything more to get it.

The mind automatically ceases to exist,and all that remains is the original peace and joy which we call God or the Self. Page 28

I would love to be free of all my samskaras, those derived from aversion and those derived from desire attachment, (not by renouncing, as I understand Satchidananda might have  encouraged his followers to do while he did the opposite??), but to know I didn't need these "petty enjoyments" in order  to experience true joy. I would love to be able to "Keep the heart in God, and the head in the world."Page 28. Wouldn't you?

There is a way to enjoy the world fully and completely. How? By seeking God first. 

We can really enjoy the world and even give all the pleasures to our senses.  Nothing needs to be starved. But when?  Only when we have found the source and connected one part of the mind there-then we can enjoy everything. page 29

All is well in my world. 

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (2011) as translated by Swami Satchidananda. Integral Yoga Publications.

A Poet?

The robins sit back in anticipation,

as the waking world exposes , ever so honestly, 

the remains of Autumn's sacrifices.

Winter is being pulled like a dirty white quilt

from its seasonal bed, 

and the life beneath yawns and stretches

wiping the sleep from its eyes

as I sit here, not writing. 

Me... see link below

 I was thinking about spring and poetry and was reminded of a poem I had published about spring ( about awakening and writing), a few years ago. 

I called myself a poet in the bio of this poem. It never felt completely authentic to call myself that. Am I poet? The  idea of "poet" is conditionally fixed in my mind and I ...as this "little me" do not seem to fit into that ideation.  I feel what I do on paper is "not writing."   I don't see myself in the same light I see Emily Dickinson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Tennyson &  the Brownings, for example. 

I just write what would be called poems but it doesn't feel like "real writing".   These poems  lack, I am sure , in any artistic genius the above are known for.  I, as the person holding the pen or doing the typing, do not have any great skill.  But it isn't about "me", is it?  In fact, poetry...at least the awkward and unpolished stuff I write,  is more about "me" getting out of the way.  I am like the dirty white quilt of snow being pulled off something beautiful that is waking up inside me. All I, as this "me",  do is feel the urge. Then I step back mentally, as much as possible, and let it all come out.  I let spring emerge. I will tweak a bit here and there after I write but I don't do it to make a great publishable poem or to be a poet.  Poetry is just the way I sometimes  allow stuff  to come out of me.  It is just the way I sometimes speak...my tone of voice; the way I sometimes see with my blurry vision, the way I sometimes think with the busy mind I am desperate to tame....and it is just one way I make  sense of things with my ever changing perspective.   It feels more like "not writing" than writing...

I love poetry for what it does. It is healing and a wonderful step to awakening.  It removes veils,  brings buried truths up to the surface and lays them out in front of this "me" so I see there is so much more to Life...so much more to this being that I am.  It is definitely a type of "soul speak".  But I, as this "me" who writes poems (or "not writes"), am just speaking in a toddler's garbled way. So much I need to learn in order to perfect my soul speech. For that reason, I have a bit of hard time calling myself a poet. 

I do send poems out on rare occasions, with little to no expectation that they will be published. (It shocks me to death when they do get picked up). Why do I send them out if I have little self identity as a poet?  I am not quite sure.  It might have to do with the fact that I have so many poems in my collection, I feel I should "do" something with them before they all rot in obscurity here.  And maybe I want to share the message?  Though the poem itself might be imperfect, messy like the early part of spring, the message revealed from  beneath the melting snow  is worth sharing because it goes beyond this "me" identity. Maybe my soul wants to speak to other souls, even if  this "me"it is speaking through,  hasn't quite mastered the language ? 

Anyway, all is well in my world.

Robin Song

 

Oh Robin, sing! For the secret of eternity is in song.

Kahlil Gibran

Heard Robin song for the first time this year and it was lovely.  It made my heart lighter. How I love the reminder of the beauty spring provides.  I was going to say "hope"...the hope spring provides in reference to what my father used to repeat over and over again as Spring emerged: "Spring brings new hope!"  I am not, however, any longer a fan of "hope".  I see it as a "desire tendency", a sweet ( but unevolved) use of a common escape mechanism...a means of getting  out of our present moment and this inner feeling of "not being okay now" to the future and an "I will be okay when..."  Hmmm!  I am rambling on I know lol.

It is all good.  I heard Robin song this morning and it was lovely. 

All is well in my world.

Stuck in Wanting and Resisting?

 One way to stay stuck is to get what you want.

Michael A. Singer

Stuck in wanting and resisting?

Hmm!  I have been thinking  alot about wanting. I have been going over in my mind  how "preferring" gets in the way of us living in this moment fully and completely. The root of all suffering, according to the Buddha and others, is desire.  I like to watch my desiring mind in action and lately I am pretty quick to observe when it is preferring. It prefers "alot". Some times I grasp and cling for the desired "stuff" it tells me I need in order to be happier; sometimes I also do the unwholesome and unnecessary thing of "renouncing" a desired object or circumstance for the sake of my spiritual evolution and sometimes I do nothing but notice that I am wanting something. In the same tone of  observation, I notice and observe when I don't want something...when I am averse to it, when I am resisting it. I see myself resisting a thing or experience  and I automatically feel guilty...like I am failing in my practice, failing in Life. I guess, I fear my wanting and my resisting will keep me stuck.

This guilt and fear must be examined a bit, for their unwholesome tendencies. I don't want to beat myself up for my lapses or failures...if that is indeed what they are.  I don't know. I just want to learn and I want to grow.  Examining those times when our  resisting, preferring mind runs off with our lives will help us to learn and grow. Won't it?

Preferring and Resisting

One of the things I notice I am preferring is the time I get to spend here with my words, reading, writing, meditating, practicing and learning. I prefer this to the thing I am resisting these days...work. I am in the habit, it seems lately,  of avoiding work. It is not that I am adverse to what I do out there to earn a few dollars and it isn't that I love it either....it is a very neutral experience .... but it, like everything in life we react to,  has the potential of "disturbing me".  This job does require a certain amount of physical and emotional stamina that I feel I am lacking in these days, in order to avoid being "disturbed". Being disturbance free in this job requires in me a willingness to be so evolved spiritually that I am detached from the  opinion of others and the need for positive self esteem or that I become overly concerned about  other opinion  and do whatever I can to manipulate and create a semblance of external positive regard.

From an object of Adventure.... 

Obviously,  the latter is more exhausting and neurotic making.  The former is the way to go...and it is the way I started this "adventure".  Yes, in the beginning I referred to this as an adventure.  My physical and emotional and spiritual energy levels were much higher when I began this job.  It was all about serving and experiencing; challenging myself and growing.  "Little me", with its neurosis and physical limitations, was tucked away somewhere and the greater part of me was in charge. I was open.  I really didn't care what others thought. There was so little anxiety and worry...or at least, I didn't let it stop me.  I didn't worry about what my body could do or not do.I jumped at any job that came up.  Not to say some days were not more challenging than others. And I certainly had some minor disturbances and slip ups into old habit tendencies  but I was able to embrace them, learn from them and then let them go. I was using the job to grow and evolve.  It was so cool.  

...to an object of resistance. 

The job has not changed...not an iota...but I have.

Somewhere along the way, I closed. I mean there were external variables...not that they were the cause for my so called problems but Life was heavy with crisis and it was calling me away from work.  I had other circumstances to deal with making me seem less reliable. Then my mind became super focused on appearing less than reliable.  Little circumstances arose that fed that ideation. I found myself worrying more about what others thought and trying to "redeem" myself.  This impacted the way I did my job ( even if it was only in my mind). Then I got tired...like really tired.  I won't go into specifics about the physical causes...but I know what they are and they are legit.  Because of the reliability issue, I  stopped taking calls in advance and decide to wait until the mornings. As the morning calls came in, I found myself hesitating with "Do I have the physical stamina to handle this group today ?" "How much stair climbing do I normally do in that school, how much running around?"  And in other groups it was like, "Is my self esteem high enough to handle this group today?" or  "Do I have the mental and emotional energy or resiliency to get through a day here?" So I really had to think before I decided to take a call and if I felt I could take one, the job was often gone by the time I accepted.  And there were many mornings when I just didn't accept because I felt it would be too much. I would feel so guilty if these ones didn't get filled, like I was letting others down.  Heck, I felt so guilty anyway. ...like I was doing something bad or wrong by not going in, not earning money. 

The fear factor in resistance

Now anxiety does have something to do with my resistance to work. The more I am away from it, a certain anxiety about returning to that which is not totally familiar emerges. There is a certain amount of fear there preventing me from jumping on every call. I am averse to fear.  My old habit tendency is to push it away. 

Resisting in preference of something else

Preference also plays a part in my avoidance resistance.  I prefer  to be here in front of this computer doing what I do. Sigh. This morning, I hesitated too long again, even though I got up to be ready and the calls were taken. I felt a twinge of guilt, yes but I also  felt soooo relieved and so excited about being able to come here and do my own thing in a quiet house! I got what I wanted! So the thought that I was resisting work for fear and desire reasons made me feel even more like a spiritual failure.  Now that I got what I wanted and I avoided what I might not have wanted, am I stuck?  

A wise person, multiple times a day, steps back and wonders what they are doing with their life. 

Questioning

I am always questioning and wondering if I am making the best use of the very limited time I have on this planet.   Is what I am doing right now, the best use of the time I have? Certainly not making any money like I would if I did the other thing.  And I am certainly not seeking to "renounce" the world by coming here either.  I know the folly of that. But I do prefer it here. Is that preference keeping me stuck?  Am I to look at it like this:  Life handed me a series of learning adventures to choose from today and in my hesitation, I resisted them all therefore I am keeping myself stuck?  Am I to see that because there is less disturbance potential here, I am not growing as much as I could by staying here and because there is so much disturbance potential out there, in that little job I signed up for, I should be jumping on each call  regardless of what body, mind and energy are saying or doing? 

Where Do I Best Serve?

Hmmm! I could take it a bit farther...if my purpose is to simply let Life unfold through me, I could argue, it does that more through me as a vessel of words than it does a sort of "babysitter", doesn't it?  If I am to serve Life ...do I not serve it better here than I do there?  Where am I doing the most good...serving more?  It seems "here" would be the answer to that.

Where do I serve Self more? This spiritual practice I do here  helps me tremendously to grow but is it challenging enough?  If I am compassionate with myself, is it not okay to say, "It was more important for you to be here while your body, mind and heart were recovering than it was to be challenging yourself?" This  was the  best place for me to be then, in reference to the past?   Maybe, it was the best place to be, because it was as it was and there is no going back.  And in the future...should I be putting my energies more "here" or "there" ? Something in me says "here". Maybe I need to look at just getting a day in a week "out there" so I am getting "out there" and spend most of that precious time here ? Or is that just rationalization?  Is it just safer to be here? I don't know. Maybe it is time to take my inner practice out there. I don't know.

Maybe Life does not give a darn about whether I am here or there.  Maybe it doesn't care what I chose to do or not do. Maybe it just wants me to stay open so it can pour through me. How I open up and where I open up is not the issue  I just need to stay open.??

Man this is confusing.  I will meditate, and pray and  allow the answers to come.

All is well. 

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( April 10, 2023) Real Growth Means Inner Change. https://tou.org/talks/

Happy Easter! Happy Awakening!!

 

This is the Easter message, that awakening is possible, to the goodness of God, the sacredness of human life, the sisterhood and brotherhood of all.

Anne Lamott

Happy Easter! (I decided to trust while I take a certain precaution that I won't share here). 

Anyway, it is a glorious morning.  The sun is bright as the earth around this form and mind I call "me" wakes up.  I feel a certain awakening, as well, inside this "me" on this Easter morning, a symbolic time of awakening and resurrection. I just feel a bit of Shakti, possibly?  Or maybe, it being an important day on the Christian calendar, I should call it "Holy Spirit"?  Regardless I feel a certain detachment to all things that once seemed so important to me...like, for example, the specific terminology, rituals and beliefs I once clung so tightly to around this holiday.  I feel a detachment from concepts, beliefs and names and labels...in general, I guess. Things just don't seem to matter like they used to: holidays, gifts, material things, rituals, ideologies, expectations, time, bodies, me-me stuff.  I feel lighter...and recognizing how much lighter I feel...makes me feel even lighter lol. It is very "freeing".  I feel more "tranquil" than I did before and this tranquility seems to be apparent to others. I, for example, walk into my grandson's room last night when he is crying, agitated, unable to settle, even for his mother, and he takes one look at me...stops crying, curls up and settles. When I get up to leave he begins crying again until I sit myself down and wait for him to fall asleep. It isn't "me" that settled him but a certain peaceful light that is in us all, and that "me" is  finally getting out of the way of. 

I realize that I have attained ( if I dare use a measurement term like that) a certain stage of inner  evolution. I am indeed waking up and knowing that is as glorious as this morning.

All is well

Trust?

 You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough.

Frank Crane

I want to trust... I do. I want to trust that what I do here has meaning and value to at least myself.  I want to trust that I am where I am for a reason and that it will all unfold exactly as it is meant to.  I risk being deceived in order to avoid the torment of suspicion. So I have chosen to trust this site and the internet to get what I feel  I need to say out there. I don't focus on outcomes...I just let it go.

I do not think much about it after I write or add to this blog. Yet, every now and again I get these icy fingers down my spine and this knot of distrust in my gut.

I appear to be  missing content from some of my entries...I mean wiped clean.  This is not the first time this has happened.  I have even had entries from way back  transposed on to different pages.  I can tell, for example, because in a December  entry about "Walking in the woods  on a winter's day", the actual  entry will be about the summer. I am not sure how many are like that but there is a few, as I go back.   It is like how did that get there and why is it now there?  Who has the ability to access and edit? Why would they? This leaves me feeling very uncomfortable with the site.  I wrote a good long entry on expression and suppression the other day. Today,  I find it in "draft" mode and open it up to discover that it is gone from the "edit post" page. All that is left is Michael A. Singer's reference. I am like what?  What is happening.? That entry was important to me....said something significant and now it is gone...wiped clean?  And it has gone from published to "draft". How does that happen? 

Yesterday, I wrote about how good it was to come here...but by "here" I mean to a reliable and trustworthy medium.I don't mind obscurity...not at all. But.... I don't want to fuss and worry about what I write after I write it.  It is one thing that readership suddenly just stops every now and again, and quite another thing that what I am writing is possibly being taken for whatever crazy reason. It is hard to get comfortable with what I do here,  in those cases. I don't want to be suspicious or anxious. I don't want to be overprotective and possessive of what comes out of me here either... but I need to know that what I am doing here has wholesome purpose and meaning.  I need to know that this time and effort is not  just supporting and serving the selfish, unwholesome needs of others. 

I am hoping it is all just a mistake on my part.  That I somehow drafted and deleted this entry on suppression and expression...that I somehow accidently transposed those other entries?? I want to trust this site. I want to trust this medium of expression, I do.  At the same time, I ask for and pray for a little more clarity.  Is this the site I am supposed to be on?  Is this the medium I am supposed to be using? Is this where I will do the most good?  The answers will come.  I know they will.

He who does not trust enough, will not be trusted.Lao Tzu

All is well. 

 

Progress

 The real spiritual progress of the aspirant is measured by the extent to which he[she,they] achieves  inner tranquility.

Swami Sivananda

I don't know how one measures their progress on this journey to the point they can explain it  or if they even can.  It is through concepts and ideas; comparisons  and expectations that we humans tend to measure progress, isn't it? This goes beyond all that.  If we are truly progressing these mental structures become obsolete. So maybe as long as we are using them to check how far we have come...we have a long way yet to go?  

I still use concepts and ideas like "getting there" or " not there yet."  I still compare myself to others but mostly to where I was before. And I still have expectations of where this will take me and even where "I should be" and where "I shouldn't be" at this point. 

All I know conceptually and even intuitively is that I have come quite a distance. I have grown from ego infancy to a certain level of spiritual maturity and understanding.  I am more tranquil than I ever was. I see myself dealing with some pretty big things without "reacting" or being bothered in ways I used to be. So maybe that is progress? I am not sure if "knowing"  that even matters at all.

All is well in my world

A Waste of Time and Effort?

 

When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitation, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world.  Dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed to be. 

Patanjali

I am not sure that what I do here is a great purpose or an extraordinary project but it does feel very important to "me" if to no one else.  Coming here, learning and expressing what I learn for nonpersonal and personal reasons seems to be the most important thing I "do" these days. It, (and my yoga practice/teaching) seem to be the only doing - things that makes sense to the  part of me that I can still not make complete conceptual sense of.  

This stuff doesn't make sense to the ego...oh no, it doesn't make a lick of sense to ego.  That part of my mind still operating as "little me" with all its demands and directions on how I should "do" and be in this physical world is constantly reprimanding me for coming here every morning.  I mean there are a few  times it is "pleased", like  when the readership for the day is up passed fifty or I write something that appeases its technical and public pleasing nature....But for the  most part, the egoic part of my mind is telling me that this is a waste of time and maybe even talent ( ego likes to redeem and shame at the same time, right? So it throws the "talent" word in there every now and again.)  On the other hand,  it tells me I should be ashamed for being where I am in Life: barely working, not keeping up with appearances, prioritizing this "woo-woo" stuff over the practical etc.  It reminds me that so much time and effort is spent here,  at the  expense of other, "more acceptable" and paying  ego pursuits. It harps on about how there are so few readers, no recognition, no income...and other things that the  productivity inclined and people pleasing ego claims I need in order to survive psychosocially in this world. It suggests I do other things, go elsewhere , and if I insist on writing, that I write more "publishable and people pleasing" stuff. I even try to heed its advice and follow its directions by doing just that. I tell myself I am going to spend less time here so I can be out there more. I go to my other stuff. I go to my other writing. I tell myself I am going to stay away.

But when the morning light streams through my window, all I can think to do is get my tea and come here.  This is how I "want" ( if I dare use that word) to spend my morning hours...surrounding myself with wisdom, seeking the wisdom inside me and getting closer and closer to that elusive "waking up".  It does not feel like "striving" or struggling or needing.  It just feels so "natural"...This seems to be a natural place to put down all I am learning and a natural place to release all that which I am letting go of...a landing mat for the shakti that is beginning to trickle out of me 

That thing that exists beyond the veil of ego mind, with all its likes and dislikes and its obsessive desire to protect itself,...is pulling me here. It is crazy.  I feel as if if this is where I am supposed to be.  Few things matter more to me. And I don't understand it  conceptually...not at all!!  It is like "What the Fork?"

...Still here I am.

Every morning, as if pulled by the same thing that pulls the tides, I find myself here...listening, reading, meditating, reflecting, observing my old mind tendencies, learning and then sharing. I love the process of putting it all together, this practice gives me.  And when I say "me"...I mean the deeper part of me.  I am finding this Self I call "me" to be a greater person than I ever dreamed to be.

How can that be a waste of time and effort? I am giving here in a way that I do not give anywhere else...completely and freely with this sincere hope that I and others will awaken just a bit more because of what I am doing with the  morning moments that unfold in front of me.

That brings me to this quote. 

The highest life anyone can live, is one where every moment that passes in front of you is better off because it did.

Michael A. Singer

Anyway, all is well!

Dark Night Induced Meaninglessness

 You can look on the world without imposing a mind made framework of meaning.

Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle, in the video below, tells us that the proverbial, "dark night of the soul",  is  the period in our lives where we lose teh ability to apply a  sense of conceptual meaning or belief to our experiences.  It is a period where we, for what ever reason, can no longer use  the mind to explain and describe who we are or how we are experiencing the world . It is a time of darkness, emptiness and meaninglessness.  I seem to be going through that now.  It is challenging. Some would call it depression and a very negative unnecessary experience but other wiser individuals may refer to as a wonderful and necessary step toward enlightenment. I see it as a blessing that has the potential to  accelerate my journey. 

Please note, I am not discounting the biological and situational causes of depression...I am just saying, in my case, at least, I know that what I am experiencing is taking me somewhere.  I, am by no means,  "enjoying" the experience of this dark night full of confusion and chaos, but I am doing my best not to judge it.  I am allowing Life to do what she must do to get me where I need to be. Things don't make a lot of sense to me right now.  Things I once found important just don't seem that important anymore. "My" life seems a little empty and meaningless. But I am going to trust Life. And I am standing back observing this period of conceptual meaninglessness.

Conceptual meaninglessness is not a bad thing.  Getting beyond the attachment we place on concepts and beliefs can take us to where we really want to be. We have created a veil between who we think we are, and who we really  are, by using the mind and then listening to the mind, following every direction it gives us.  The veil is all the stuff the mind created about  who "little me" is and what is important and what we must do to feel good inside etc. Breaking down this veil , that really has no value, isn't a whole lot of fun but it is necessary if we want to wake up.. 

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

Yogananda

In A Course in Miracles,  the first six lessons help to dismantle this veil and to induce a sort of  voluntary dark night.  In lesson one we look about our room at random items, removing conceptual meaning from them, as we  say, "This_____does not mean anything".   In Lesson Two, we remind ourselves that we have given each of these items all the meaning they have for us.  There really is or was  no meaning there before teh mind did its thing. Then we admit to our confusion in Lesson Three. We admit that we do not understand anything that we see. (Think about it! We really do not understand anything, do we?) We take this confusion and this dismantling of meaning to our thoughts in Lesson 4. In lesson five and six we remind ourselves that we are not upset for the reasons we think we are. We are seeing something that isn't there in every upset. It is an illusion created by the veil in which we see through.  We then need to equalize all upsets, not judging some as big and some as small.  All upset is due not to what has happened inside or outside of us but to the meaning the mind placed on it. 

Wow! I have done these lessons a few time but just thinking about it now...I see teh wisdom in them even more! This wisdom is echoed in so many traditions in various ways. Hmm! I love when I can connect the dots between different things I read and studied.

Anyway, I must continue shuffling along through this glorious dark night.

All is well. 

ACIM (2011) Workbook For Students. Foundations for Inner Peace

Eckhart Tolle ( January, 2023) Going Through A Dark Night of the Soul. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DrR6rSJhN0

The Path of Analyzing and Controlling the Mind

 You may control a mad elephant; 

You may shut the mouth of the bear and the tiger; 

Ride the lion and play with the cobra; 

By alchemy you may earn your livelihood; 

You may wander through the universe incognito; 

Make vassals of the Gods; Be forever youthful; 

You may walk on water  or live in fire; 

But control of the mind is better and more difficult. 

Yogananda

I am committed to my path, I am.  But sometimes it seems more challenging than shutting the mouth of a bear.  I am still stuck on the step of confusion and chaos, it seems.  I am still stumbling and bumping my way through the proverbial, "Dark night of the soul," I have stubbed my toe many, many times! I am not giving up, though.  In fact, I am even more inspired than ever to keep going. Why? Because, taming the mind,  is all that makes sense to me right now. It seems to be the only true solution to the darkness...the only thing, I know in my heart, that will bring lasting light to the world.

I have always been fascinated by the human mind: other people's minds but mostly my own. Self-analysis was always kind of my thing, even before I consciously began this journey to awakening. 
Now I can see where that interest has taken me. It has led me to the opening of this path. It has shown me what the root cause of suffering was and where I have to go to be free of it.  Where do we go to be free of suffering?  To the mind , of course, and then beyond! Through  looking inward, and questioning why we think the way we do, act the way we do, feel and experience (or not experience) life the way we do, we help to create the beautiful  art of universal healing, of understanding and wisdom.  I want to be an artist! What about you?

Millions of people never analyze themselves. Mentally they are mechanical products of the factory of their environment, preoccupied with breakfast, lunch and supper and going here and there to be entertained. They don't know what or why they are seeking, nor why they never realize complete happiness or lasting satisfaction. By evading self-analysis people go on being robots. conditioned by their environments. True self-analysis is the greatest art of progress. 

Yogananda

All is well in my world. 

Paramahansa Yogananda (1936) Autobiography of a Yogi. Kindle edition.

You can get a free Ebook PDF copy of this book through https://www.freespiritualebooks.com/

Steps In the Space Between

That space between reaction and awareness is what you are here for.

Michael A. Singer

So we are here to  grow and evolve.  There is a space between our infantile reactivity, our focus on "poor little me" with  all its desires and fears  and our coming to  awareness...full awakening.  "Growing up " is a journey that occurs in steps, according to Michael Singer and many others. I can attest to many of these steps because I have taken them (and I have tripped on them)  as I make my way to full awareness. 

The steps are,, I believe:

1. Reactivity: where we react with out thought, like temper tantruming toddlers and their "me-me" proclamations, to the life circumstances that surround us. This is where we begin to build our psyche ( the collection of all our learned experiences) and begin writing the lists of our wants and don't wants. 
2. Planning: as we begin to grow we realize that reactivity only gets us in trouble, giving us more of what we don't want and really doesn't help us get what we want...so we learn to plan.  We have collected, in our psyches, all those experiences that felt "good" inside and we plan ways to manipulate, seek and attain that which will continue to make us feel good.  We have also "learned" to decipher what things and circumstances made us feel "bad" inside and we plan ways to fix what is broken "out there"and we plan ways to protect ourselves from more of these situations. We reinforce this idea of "me"...we reinforce our psyches. The power of unfulfilled desire is at the root of all man's slavery. Yogananda
3. Noticing: We begin to notice and observe what we are doing in regards to reactivity and planning; we observe that we have been doing it our whole life and that it doesn't work!  We see that even though we put so much energy into this and no matter how much we achieve in outer world standards...it isn't making us happy; it isn't taking away our suffering.  We are still constantly struggling.  We are still suffering. 
4. Realization that we are not okay: We see that  as long as we have things inside that bother us or things outside that bother our things inside we are not okay. We see we suffer.
5. Reaching a limit of not being okay: We finally have enough of these tendencies that don't work.  We finally have enough of suffering and struggle.  We just want peace!  (That is the stage where I am most times)....
6. Saying "No"to the Mind's Habit Energies : We finally put our hand up and say, "Enough! I am not going to do this any longer! I am not  going to be pulled by desire and fear anymore." ...
7. Turning inward rather than outward: We finally get it that we have to deal with what is inside and stop blaming and worrying so much about the outside. Since you alone are responsible for your thoughts, only you can change them. (Yogananda).  Of course we are going to be completely shocked  when we see how much we actually have stuffed inside that we have denied most of our lives.  It will be a little overwhelming. 
8. Willingness to Evolve: We become willing to step back and watch without reacting as Life does what it is here to do... We, as these troubled reactive, planning little "me"s are, at least, willing to get out of the way for that which is deeper to come through. (This stage is not about renouncing...it all about noticing and being willing not to follow old habit energies any longer ). Though actually being able to get out of the way and staying out of the way, at this point, is not that easy
9. Testing out the Seat of Awareness: We will, because of our willingness to let go,  have moments when we find ourselves centered and peaceful for no explicable reason.  In those moments we are momentarily in the Seat of awareness...we are the witness and observer.  Little "me" is out of the way.  It will seem that we got it....but... we will likely not stay here for very long.
10. Series of slips and falling back into old ways: This is a "practice" and a practice means there is a certain degree of mistakes and failures as we learn. We will fall back into old habit tendencies. That is a given. It is so important we don't punish or reprimand ourselves harshly, or give up on the process because we just don't seem to "get it" quick enough. We must be compassionate and patient  with our inner students, no matter how long it takes. Every time we notice we slip, we are progressing. The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success. Yogananda
11. Releasing and Letting Go: old stored stuff begins to emerge and rise up to our conscious awareness. The pent up energy from our Samskaras is  heading out the door.  We may be tempted here to pull it back in or push it back down because it is painful. Don't! If we slip and do , however, we can go back to step 10 
12. Moving Through Confusion and Chaos: As we begin to awaken there is stage we hit where Life seems more confusing and chaotic than it ever did before.  Our defenses have eroded away.  We are no longer using our old go-to- methods of coping with life (escaping and numbing) and Life just wants to seem to challenge us. On top of that the painful energy we buried our samskaras in is also rising up. It gets yucky both inside and outside. (Yeah...I know this stage well). This, I believe, is the proverbial "Dark night of the soul."
13.  Reinforcing our commitment:  We may be tempted to throw in the towel here...but don't.  The confusion and chaos, like all things, will pass. (Well that is what I keep telling myself. :)) We will probably have to reinforce our commitments several times with "I will do better next time!" Persistence guarantees that results are inevitable. Yogananda
14. Relax. Relax, Relax!:   It is all about relaxing, not so much about relaxing into what is unfolding but relaxing in awareness, stepping out of the way and allowing whatever is to just pass through us. Again, this relaxing is a practice  The better we get at relaxing, the more things will pass through us, and the longer we can stay centered in  higher consciousness, where things are seen more clearly...In centered relaxation, we are the "witness" of the stuff we are seeing and not the stuff we are seeing. That is a tremendous realization. We have relaxed our "attachment" 
15. Opening of the heart:  Well the heart is naturally open.  It is just through our reactivity, our fear and desiring that we closed it up.  Without fear and desire dictating our every move, the heart will naturally remain open and things will pass through much more quickly and smoothy. An open heart means we are more open to Life, allowing and embracing what is.
16. Energy Flowing: We will, according to the masters, and I have yet to experience this other than in a few glimpses and teasers, feel a surge of natural free-flowing energy as shakti, now freed from behind the blockages, pours through us. We will not only find the peace, I am doing all this for, but enthusiasm, bliss, joy and love .  It will feel amazing!  ( Well that is what I am told and what I choose to believe). It will no longer matter what is happening out there.  We will see that love, joy and peace have always been in us and as long as we stay open, we cannot be disturbed by anything. We might start to get some invisible and some visible support here. (That would be nice! :)) 
17. Questioning the Source: Where it is all coming from? Singer reminds us that we can go beyond step 16 and experience something even greater.  When we feel this energy we may begin to question where it is all coming from. What is the Source of this love, joy, bliss?  We know it is coming behind us so...
18. Falling Back  into the Source : We let everything we are still  holding onto go and we fall back into the Source.  We just let go of "me" and our humanness completely
19. Merging: Here we are said to merge...like a drop of water we fall into the ocean and once again become One with it.
20. Complete Awareness: If we are lucky, and few beings on this planet have ever reached this step, but if we are lucky here,  we realize experientially that we are simply awareness. We are as evolved as we can get. At this point, or before, we will be able to look back on our past and see that everything, everything we experienced was there to take us here. It will all make complete sense. Imagine!

Hmm! I am not sure if I will ever get past step 14 but I am willing and committed to keep  trying. It, regardless of outcome,  just seems like a very important series of steps, don't you think? Well, it is the path that feels most right to me. What about you?

All is well.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( April 2, 2023) Accelerating Your Awakening. https://tou.org/talks/

Paramhansa Yogananda (1946) Autobiography of a Yogi. Kindle Edition

No Longer Offend

When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend.  If a thing can no longer offend you, it ceases to exist in the old way.

Third Zen Patriarch

The Space of Unconditional Okayness Beyond the Clutter

Relax, allow your mind  to become empty, and surprise yourself with the great treasure that begins to flow from your soul.

Paulo Coelho

Sometimes I am very grateful for days when there is little to no readership.  I realize on those days that I am still trapped and caught up in the idea of me, even in my attempt to get to that place of what I call, "unconditional okayness", that lay in the space beyond "me". It leads me to think: 

The Intrigue of watching Hoarders

My "me" is a mess and my consciousness is just amazed that something can get that messy.  It is like walking by a TV while an episode of "Hoarders", is playing.  You don't necessarily want to watch  for all kinds of reasons but your mind is like, "Wow! How can a place get so bad!" So you just can't  walk away from the screen, you are transfixed on it. In fact, you find yourself sitting down watching episode after episode. You become addicted. 

The Addicted Mind to "Me" 

Well as I immerse myself into this inner world of my spiritual growth  I catch myself  looking at my own psyche and saying, "Wow!  How can  a place get so bad? !" 

Collecting The Desirable

I, like most people, have been focusing all my attention on my little "me" in action  for many, many years.  My life is a Hoarders episode and it is hard to look at anything else. Little "me", is like so many people, collecting the desirable and pushing out the undesirable or the feared. It wasn't until very recently that I have come to see the "me" as an addict and a hoarder.  At first,  I was addicted to collecting and holding onto things out there that I thought would make me feel better in here. I collected a lot of special stuff and people, pulling them inside and clinging to them. Though I denied it for a long time, I finally realized they didn't make me feel better.  They just made a mess and the more I collected the more of a mess they made.  

Pushing Away The Unwanted and Feared

I also used the mess to hide beneath. The more "stuff", the less there was of the vulnerable and unworthy  "me" to deal with. I was constantly going around organizing this stuff so it was comfortable enough in here.  That meant, however, keeping certain "unselected and unwanted" things out of my messy but familiar little world. My fear led me to close the door on anything or anyone that could possibly come in to disturb my piles or who might  judge, criticize or tell me I had to "get rid" this mess I was so addicted to.  I didn't want anyone "out there" to see the mess in here so I put my consciousness and mental energy toward  making the  outside look good so no one would notice the  inside.  I kept pushing my stuff farther and farther back away from the door into rooms that became extremely crowded. It was too hard.  Naturally, the expanding piles were growing and wanting out of their cramped containment. It was next to impossible  to keep it all contained inside...stuff landed in piles out in my yard for all the neighbors and all passer bys to see. It consumed me with shame. The shame of not being what I thought I should be was exhausting. Fixing it all, keeping it in order while I kept adding to it with more things that might make me feel better, but never did, was also completely exhausting.  The mess took over my life. It took over my conscousness...it was all I could focus on. Eventually I realized if I wanted anything akin to peace...to get to that spacious space beneath all the clutter where "unconditional okayness" existed,  I would have to clean it all up inside my mental home where I was trying to live.

The Cleansing Process

 Just like the cleaning processes on these programs, it takes a lot of time to purify one's mind...I notice in my own cleansings, one layer  of psyche is removed to reveal another layer, another messy pile and then another and another. Things I never even realized I collected come to the door. There doesn't seem to be any end to it.  It is soo painful! And my consciousness cannot seem to look away from the mess. Old tendencies emerge. I want to push it back down and/or I want to blow it out of me. There are two things we mental horaders can do when we become upset about our mess.  We can continue to suppress or we can express.

Suppress? 

Suppression is bad, right?  It means pushing down and away from our conscious awareness the mess and how it makes us feel. It is really not cleaning the mess up...it is just a matter of pushing back so we and others cannot  see it. It is still there, all jammed up inside us, cluttering the space. We are really not cleaning, really not changing and really not removing anything in the way of us experiencing peace and okayness.  Suppression does not work! So is expression the way to go? 

Express?

I get so overwhelmed with the mess sometimes that I just want to blow it all out the window with a power hose lol.  What I do, in this case,  is "express".  Expression, like suppression, though totally acceptable by modern psychologists and the like , is not really healthy, if we do it in the way I have been doing it.  When I complain, unload for the sake of just unloading, come here with my tales of "poor me" and my long list of grievances, I am simply blowing all the mess I was holding inside outside to relieve some of the pressure.  My piles...my junk... is now just polluting my yard and neighborhood. At the same time...I am still very much in possession of it.  It is still "my" stuff. And as long as it is my stuff I am not going to get rid of it. I am still attached.  I am still clinging to it, protecting it,  and using it to hide behind. That is not healing.

Let the Space of "Unconditional Okayness" Emerge

So neither suppression or this type of expression is healing.  Knowing that, we let the space that wants to emerge emerge.   We need to stop looking for more "out there" to pile up into this space, blocking it.  We now know what a mess desiring  makes. We also  need to open heart's door as each layer of mess is naturally released at a time.  As the junk  makes its way close to the door, we stop pushing it back. We also don't grab  the stuff on its way out the door by saying, "Well on second thought...I think I might need that or I could use this for something.." We let it all go. We also stop pushing away those things we fear, that may actually challenge us to do a thorough cleaning. Let the cleaning help in and let the junk go out. 

We Are the Space Where Soul's Treasures Can Be Found

We need to remember that we are not the mess and we are not even the hoarders attached to the mess.  We are the space beneath the mess, the "unconditional okayness" on top of which we piled all this useless junk. We couldn't know that because we were too busy focusing on the clutter.  In order to know that, we have to experience that space.  We can't do that until we clean out our insides of the clutter we collected and fearfully protected. Better said, we just let our insides clean themselves so the space can expand.  All we got to do is keep heart's door open so the stuff we don't need can get out and the stuff needed for cleansing can get in.  We clear the inside so space is what we can focus our whole attention on. Then we can revel in this space of unconditional okayness that just gets better, the experts say, the more we stay in it. We can keep a door open in the front and a door open in the back, so that once we are free and spacious,  Life can blow in and blow right out again without disturbing us in the least. Now that would be something. Don't you think? 

The real treasures are not the stuff we collect from the world, creating this safe familiar but cluttered space we call"me"....it is that emptiness the soul provides for.

All is well. 

Inspired by :

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( April 2 & 4th, 2023) Accelerating Your Awakening & Experiencing Love and Joy Instead of Fear and Desire. https://tou.org/talks/

Being Willing To Learn and Grow

 Reshape yourself through the power of your will; never let yourself be degraded by self-will. The will is the only friend of the Self, and the will is the only enemy of the Self.

The Gita, Chapter 6, Verse 5 (as translated by Eknath Easwaran)

So this spiritual process many of us are undertaking is basically a reshaping of ourselves from overidentification with self to realization of Self. The key component is our willingness to awaken. 

I am definitely willing. So often I find myself, however,  frustrated as I look at my awakening process. I catch my mind questioning, "Am I moving at all?",  as I continue to jot down my learning and practice highlights and lowlights here. I so often feel like I am in a vehicle going up a hill in neutral. Then I listen to Michael Singer on one of his weekly podcasts  or read something beautiful from a scripture or from another enlightened master and it is like..."Man...I am getting somewhere. I am learning.  I am growing, albeit not quickly, but steadily. "  My willingness to awaken is getting me up that hill. 

I had such an "aha moment" today upon listening to the podcast below. Yesterday I wrote about what I am learning to do with pain as a practice of relaxing into what is. I recognized that I hit a limit I was at this point not able to get beyond.  Everytime we recognize ( and record like I do here) our slip ups into reactivity,  is learning.  I see how I am catching myself sooner in my reactivity and learning to relax and to release into uncomfortable experiences like physical pain.  I see how I have accomplished so much and at the same time see there are fruit out there that remain  a little too high for my reach...for now. 

I am using my will to awaken.  I am using it for Self and not against Self...well that is what I am hoping I am doing lol.I am starting to wake up and it is very confusing and uncomfortable in here as these old samskaras rise up to the surface.  It is challenging not to degrade myself and push them back down.  The core beliefs I am reminded of are difficult pills to swallow.  Yet, I know they have to be up here and not down there if they are going to be released. Resisting them requires a use of my self-will against Self rather than for it. I don't want to do that anymore but it isn't always easy.

I would love to accelerate my awakening so I am willing to use everything taht comes my way as a means to do so. Of course I slip up but at least I am noticing when I slip up and fall back into reactivity.  That is a positive thing, isn't it?  Anyway....

Singer assures us that if we keep up with this practice, we will eventually be free of our blockages, Shakti will flow through and someday we may even connect with the Source of that shakti. But the more we let go, the easier it gets. We will eventually see that we are and were never alone. Hmmm! 

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and  all these things will be added onto you. ( Matthew 6:33)

All is well in my world.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of teh Universe ( April 2, 2023) Accelerating Your Awakening . https://tou.org/talks/

Learning And Physical Pain

 In most cases, learning something essential in life requires physical pain.

Haruki Murakami

So tired!  I had a very, very rough night of pain...and not chest pain, abdominal pain.  I can handle pain...I can.  With my practice I am learning to relax into all experiences even physical pain. 

Easy Learning

 I started with Charlie horses, which can be pretty nasty,  years ago and I can say that I have mastered it.  Every time I have one, I resist the urge to resist...meaning that I do not give into  old pull - the- hand -away from -the flame - reflexes. I assure my amygdala that it is all good, that there is no immediate threat to my survival, that the pain will come and the pain will go. Instead of automatically jumping up and down in hope of putting out the internal fire...I still myself.  I release anywhere I am starting to clench up and I breathe.  I simply breathe. Now a charlie horse can skip up the pain scale pretty fast to an 8/10, right?  Especially if we are adding extra muscle tension to it with our resistance of it...and they can last a good five minutes.  But with my practice I am able to get the immediate  pain to go from an eight to a two or a three.  I also give it the opportunity to do its thing and be gone in less than a minute. What a difference! It was easy to practice with Charlie horses.

Intermediate Learning

Then I went to chest pain. I handle my chest pain remarkably well.  In my practice, I am learning to remove all story and narrative from the experience, all worry and concern about possible outcome.  I remind myself there has been no fatal consequences or critical damage done to the heart in the 25 + years that I have had it therefore the likelihood of there being damage now is minimal.  Most of the resistance one has to chest pain has to do with fear.  Without fear there is less resistance, without resistance, there is less pain. Again, I resist the urge to resist it. ( and am learning, albeit not as quickly,  to not push past it).  I am learning to sit with it and I simply breathe while I become aware of areas of the body that are not experiencing pain sensation. If the pain still  reaches a 6 or 7 on the pain scale or persists after a half hour of rest, I will take nitro...and do that protocol. I also look deeply into the root causes of the pain experience...what is going on in my life or my mind that might be triggering old samskaras.  Long story short, I take a lot less nitro! And I have not gone into emergency with this pain in about six years!  

I am learning to do it with other pain as well.  Like the pain I started getting in my LUQ about a year ago.  That was easy because it was never that bad but not knowing what was causing it and it being where it was, led to concern about it and my seeking an answer for it. ( to no avail). Which made the pain a little more intense than it had to be.  I was able , once again, after a lot of heart to hearts with my amygdala, to assure it there there was no reason for  worry. That led to a decrease in intensity of the pain experience.  The left lower quadrant  pain ...is fairly easy to handle, as well, especially  with the mind relieved by evidence that it is just a benign cyst. When the mind with all its analysis and worry is out of the picture, physical pain is so much easier to handle.

Advanced Learning and Failure

But as I practice ,the challenges are getting harder.  The pain I am most challenged by is abdominal pain.  Now I am used to abdominal cramping...I have had a lactose intolerance all my life and know what happens when I eat dairy. Those middle of the night sessions can be pretty intense ...reaching an 8 easy on the scale and lasting, hours and hours,  right through to morning.  I have  had plenty, plenty of those.  So I have been practicing there with the "waves" of pain. I can relax in all the in between sessions and in the crest and trough of the pain, but when it peaks it is a lot more challenging.  So I just remind myself I am riding a wave.  The water will be still, then it will crest and peak but after that peak...it will trough again and settle into a peaceful remission until the next wave of pain. And eventually, the mission of the waves, will be accomplished and the pain will be gone....until the next time I eat too much dairy again. This is, of course, the same technique  that Lamaze uses with labour contractions.   I understand the physiological mechanism of this pain so well and that is helpful.

What is the  Mind Doing In Our Pain Experiences?

I also notice and am still quite shocked by the  psychological aspects of this pain, any intense pain I experience. After an episode I feel relief and hear myself saying...okay ...you took your punishment well.  Now you have earned a bit of  rest, a right to tend to the fatigue and other symptoms that remain..  It is like I give myself permission to sink into the recovery period of pain without guilt or shame...only if I did some intense suffering.  That old core belief, associated with that old smaskara deep within me , that tells me  I need to suffer through Life in order to earn my right to be here,  emerges. The only way I can truly "nurture" myself, stop "doing" for others etc,  is if I earned that right through intense suffering. Hmmm! It is only then, I feel I can turn to someone and say, "I had a rough night.  I had a lot of pain." Otherwise, the discomfort of others drowns out my own.

So anyway...I am learning.  We can learn so much through all our experiences...each human experience can help us to evolve at the deeper level. Physical pain can offer such an opportunity. But sometimes, it isn't easy.  Last night...it wasn't easy. Something has been going on in my gut for a long time but man...it reached a peak last night.  I woke up at two with that sweaty restless feeling I  had the last few nights but this time there was pain, a type of abdominal pain I am used to but it was much more intense.  I began practicing right away by relaxing into the pain, breathing, self talk etc but the pain shot up to a ten on the scale very quickly and each peak of pain was lasting so very long, getting stronger and stronger with each wave. My usual go to of "walking pain off" was not able to work because I was so very weak with it.  I could only walk a few feet even during the little pause between the waves because my body was threatening to collapse.  I felt like I was going to pass out.  It made me feel chilled all over between each wave of intense heat.  And I knew something was blocked...the waves of pain were fighting against a blockage and this pain was not going to go away anytime soon.  The pain increased, the faint feeling increased.  I collapsed onto the bathroom floor, shivering. I think there was so much pain, it was putting me into shock. Instead of relaxing and allowing the pain, I found myself, in some bizarre way, praying for death.  I was pleading to some force I could not see but felt was punishing me again, "If you plan on making this go on any longer than  an hour as punishment for my being here on this planet...well I rather not be here.  I can't pay this price. Put me out of my misery.  It is too much. I would rather be dead."  It was  that bad.  And then just like that it stopped...well not stopped but diminished to the point where I could crawl back into bed to sleep. It was like the teacher  pushed me to the point where she realized I was not going to pass this test and  said..."Okay, you failed this time.  I will try  you again later."  Man, I don't want to go through that again.  I am feeling better pain wise right now but my body took a beating last night. I am, however, giving myself lots of recovery time because after enduring the intensity of taht pain, I  feel I have earned it. 

Okay, crazy lady, what was the point of this big long ramble?

We can use every experience we have the opportunity to have as human beings, including the pain experience, to learn and grow. All lessons come in graduated levels .  Some lessons will be easier than others. We cannot beat ourselves up if we do not pass the advanced level tests...but, even in failure,  there is still learning in them. Facing, allowing and even embracing the challenge of physical pain can help in our practice of accepting Life, and in our practice of  relaxing into all that is.

The most important thing, I believe, is to look deeply into the psychological aspects of physical pain.  Man, it still blows me away to see that deep rooted samskara in me that screams out the belief that I need to suffer so intensely just to breathe the air on this planet, that I am being punished, deservedly so, without every bout of pain I have. 

Man...noon deserves to suffer like I did last night and I don't care what they might have done.  Imagine thinking one deserves that! 

Anyway, just sharing experiences that might be familiar to others....for learning purposes. We must learn to look at pain and and all it entails, saying.."And this too...this too belongs." 

All is well!