How much of the universe is your thoughts? How much of the universe is your feelings? ...Why then am I distracted by these stupid little thoughts [and feelings]?
Nothing in this world can take away your growth, It can only stimulate it.
Michael A. Singer
Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( January 20, 2025) Living Life Beyond Fear and Desire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5j7BOtHaPY&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1
Getting what you want is over rated; avoiding what you don't want is over rated too.
Michael A. Singer
Most of us are living our life out of fear...getting what we want and avoiding what we dont want.
Michael A. singer, in the below linked podcast explains that we spend our life chasing after these desires and wondering , "Why can I not get what I want?". We are also spending our lives running away from our fears and asking, "Why do bad things keep happening? How do I avoid it?"
We should be asking:
Desires or fears are due to the fact that something is wrong....based on what you stored inside of you.
Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True (January 20, 2025) Living Life Beyond Fear and Desire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5j7BOtHaPY&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&ind
Vipassana is the art of living. Not the art of escaping.
??
I forgot somehow how the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, passed down to those he trained at Plum Village, loaded with the Practical Wisdom of Zen Buddhism, were so beautuful!!!
In an address to a younger audience (Thich Nhat Hanh's aspiration, I heard many times, was to bring mindfulness to the younger population where mind was not yet heavy with opposing habit tendencies or resistance). Brother Phap Huu spoke of Vipassana and the two wings of Mindfulness: Vipassana and Samatha.(Though he did not use that terminolgy.) It centered around this idea that we were all three things: Meditators, artists, and warriors.
We all have the ability to be still and look deeply into our inner worlds (our home) so we experience insight. (Vipassana and Samatha).
Meditators, and Mindfulness Practitioners
The first step is coming home into the space and stillness of who we are....stopping in the face of our nonstop thinking and falling back into the moment, the body, the breath.
We all have the seed of enlightenment in us, the seed to understand.
Our spiritual home is in our breath, in our steps and in the way we look after one another.
The first wing of meditation is having the capacity to take a pause and notice what the body is experiencing...to feel
When you are able to feel, it is being able to be alive
He explained how this is not always easy because many of us have seeds of resistance in us and a habit tendency of running away from pain. These seeds, of course, do not have the potential to enrich the more wholesome and skillful qualities in us. Most of us, spend our lives looking for that sense of love, acceptance, belonging to end our inner feelings of lonliness and of not being enough. We attempt to create appearances of being solid and stable when witin us we actually have the space of vulnerability that we may be running from. This is what we are conditioned to avoid by main stream society...it is almost normal but it isn't healthy. We may recognize parents and ancestors in our habit tendencies...they may have been transmitted to us.
Warriors
The warrior part of us is that which couragously attempts to get past our conditioning, and to look deeply into these painful feelings and vulnerbility. Warriors recognize they are the continuation of their ancestors and attempt to honor their journey and what was transmitted to them, while also creating and developing a new understanding.
Coming home is befriending self, feelings, emotions etc
Mindfulness is to be present to stop and to identify what is there
The mechanism of avoiding grief...of avoiding pain is very strong
When you come home to the body be compassionate as you look deeply.
Relaxation is an art...gifting self the time to release, take refuge in mother earth. Learn to relax for ancestors and others
Need to put away our expectations of others and Life...the story
It is okay to feel, to rely on others for help or support when we tap into our vulnerbaility, our grief, and our insecurities. We all have them.
Somewhat paraphrased.
Artists
Brother Phap Huu tells us we are artists of teh present moment.
We are all artists...artists of this present moment. Are we able to highlight what is bringing us joy right now?
The present moment is only made by the past and it is the infra structure of the future
We define joy and happiness and discover it is in the present moment but we also need to recognize there is also pain and suffering within us. Recognizing our pain is a wonderful healing step taht can bring joy.
After becoming aware of capacity for joy and happiness in these breath exercises...we tap into our suffering
We recognize inwholesome seeds like pride and shift it into something more wholesome. We see the interbeingness of our accomplishments. Though it is okay to feel good when we do good , it is even more important to turn it into gratitude.
We call this "Sharing the merit".
We can do things here like breathing with our inferiority complex
We need to be aware of first and second arrows.
The inferiority complex is just a perception, not even a reality. We pierce our selves with second arrows with our thinking...growing own suffering...
We need to be aware of the painful feeling, where it is in the body, name it, than cognitively deconstruct it...tramsmute it into something more wholesome and life affirming.
Calming it with seeing the value of it...cognitive reconstruction
Anger is connected to love and compassion
We have a lot of mud in us
Painful emotions are a part of and when we express them we can find joy and healing.
We also need to recognize the story around that feeling.
Where is the story here and what story am I holding onto?
Is there a new story I can generate?
As an artist of the present moment, we are all drawing a new past for today... creating a new infra structure for the future
So, as BR Phap Huu shares with his young audience, we are meditators, artists of the present moment, and warriors with the courage to feel.
All is well
Plum Village/ Br. Phap Huu ( October, 2024) Who Are You Meant to Be? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73qcaaI747E
My real pleasure was never in earthly things-in husband, wife, children, and other things. For I am like the infinite blue sky: clouds of many colours pass over it and play for a second; they move off, and there is the same unchangeable blue. Happiness and misery, good and evil, may envelop me for a moment, veiling the Self; but I am still there. They pass away because they are changeable. I shine because I am unchangeable.
...For I am It! I am It!
Vivekananda ( 2.6 Practical Vedanta in Complete Works)
Spirituality, according to Michael A. Singer, is all about ceasing to be distracted from our thoughts. It is not about stopping or controlling the mind's thinking...but simply about not getting distracted by thinking, feeling, all the stuff we pick up from our senses, or our attachments to all these worldly things we tend to get attached to.
We can not see the "I am It!" that Vivekananda declares because we are so distracted away from It that we do not even know we are distracted. We are the blue sky, but are focusing so hard on all those "clouds of many colours" : happiness, misery, good, and evil that pass over the blue sky ...we come to believe that is who we are....the clouds. Then we spend our life times defending and protecting these attachments through our philosophies and beliefs...creating more dark clouds over this spacious blue sky.
We are the changeless sky...not the ever changing phenomena that comes and goes across this sky. This cannot, however, be understood with the mind. It can only be experienced.
Philosophy is of mind, and Truth is of direct experience.
Ancient Rishis didn't sit around philosophizing. They directly experienced Truth in Himalayian caves. They realized they were the ones looking at things and not that which they were looking at. They realized that humans were constantly being distracted from the consciousness they were/are by the objects of consciousness. They passed on this hard earned knowledge through yoga so we didn't have to do the asthetic and renounciant cave thing.
Consciousness, soul is the essence of your being...The Kingdom of Heaven is within You...not in your thoughts, emotions, beliefs, worldly attachments...in You...
I like how Singer uses the analogy of 'taking away' to discover we are still there. If our thoughts were taken away...we would still be in here realizing that our thoughts are no longer there. That would mean we are not our thoughts....we are the ones that were witnessing our thoughts. If our feelings were taken away...we would still be in here knowing that our feelings were suddenly not there ( that might be a pleasant experience for many of us). We would realize that we are not our feelings. We were the ones that were witnessing and experiencing our feelings.
We could go further to say if we were standing in a room with those people we are attached to and the furniture was taken away piece by piece...we would be aware that the pieces of furniture were suddenly gone. We would see we were not the material objects we "possessed" and we were not the "woner" of them. Then if the walls were taken away, we would see we are still here watching and experiencing.
And what about "husband wife, children, and other things"? What if our spouse was taken away? We would still be in here witnessing that we no longer had a spouse, yet we were still here. We would see that we are not the "spouse" we identified as. If our children were taken away, we would see that we were not the parent we identified as, because we didn't cease to be when our children were removed. If our jobs or roles are taken away do we cease to be? No. What about parts of our body...eyes, ears, limbs, certain organ functions? No. Heck...we do not cease to be when the body dies because we are not the body! We are that changeless Self beneath it all simply being distracted from the consciousness we are by the objects of consciousness.
We could practice saying to ourselves: I Am It... I am not that which I am looking at...
I think this from the Kena Upanishads says it all:
Not that which the eye can see, but that by which the eye can see; know that to be Brahman the eternal, and not what people here adore.
Not that which the ear can hear, but that by which the ear can hear; know that to be Brahman the eternal, and not what people here adore.
Not that which speach can illuminate , but that by which speech can be illuminated; know that to be Brahman the eternal, and not what people here adore.
Not that which the mind can think, but that by which the mind thinks; know that to be Brahman, and not what people here adore.
The Kena Upanishads
All is well.
Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( January, 2025) Beyond Philosophy: Experiencing the Truth of Consciousness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj8GD_JXL6U&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=6
Vivekananda...Complete Works...Kindle Edition
When I speak I try to convey my feelings, my insight, and I guess that there are people that have a heart that is not so burdened with sorrow and with anger... a heart that is still free to listen and receive the message. ...
Thich Nhat Hanh
Is anyone receiving this message from me as an imperfect messenger.
Like Thich Nhat Hanh (on a much lesser scale lol,) that is why I come here ....to plant some seeds (even though I still feel like I have no business planting seeds :)
I reach out to whomever might be tapping in and I share what is becoming my truth, my dharma ( even though I still feel like I have no business doing so)
To take the opportunity to plant some seeds is what we could...what we should do in our everyday life. And who knows when the seed will sprout and become a real plant, a tree.
I agree that effort should be made to start living now and I share that opinion (Though I still feel I have no business sharing my far from expert opinion with anyone.)
Effort should be made so that the present moment is the most important in our life. The next moment is made of this moment. So the best way to take care of the next moment is to take care of this moment.
I am aging and it has taken me decades to get to this part of my understanding. I am far from enlightened and in fact, I am not even sure if that is my goal. Peace is my goal. I seek peace (Though I still feel that...because I am not a monk/nun let alone a young one... I have no business sharing that I am seeking peace on a public platform.)
The Buddha said enlightenment is not a matter of time. You should not underestimate something small like a spark of fire...a little poisonous snake...a baby prince...a young monk. A spark of fire is very small but if you are not very careful it can burn down a whole city. A small snake can kill you in just a few minutes. A baby Prince will become a King...you must not under estimate him. And a young monk...if he practices correctly, he can get enlightenment in a very short time.
I practice and I share my practice (even though I still feel I have no business sharing because I have no idea if I am practicing "correctly".)
Despite my lack of sangha I have come to see that true happiness is peace and I share that here. (Though I still feel I have no business sharing such with you.)
True happiness should be based on peace inside, solidity, and freedom...Happiness cannot be obtained by running after wealth, fame, sex and things like that...[When we realize this we are closer to enlightenment than someone who doesn't.]
I attempt to "help" many suffering people close to me and am constantly failing in my attempts to show them, through my example only, a better way of looking at their lives. They cannot see the value of what I have learned and am trying to live by because their own pain is too thick to see through. So, I come here in hope that my "hard-earned" learning will benefit someone, if it isn't benefitting the ones physically close to me. (Though I still feel I have no business doing so.)
But there are many others who have no patience, no courage, no time for tranquility in order to listen to us....Is there anything we can do to help these people? The presence of a loving person, the presence of someone who is able to listen, to understand is that which we need the most in our life, in our world.
Am I helping anyone? I don't know. I really don't. But here I am, showing up on the page doing what I feel compelled to do, anyway, whether I have any business doing so or not.
All is well.
Baba Ram Dass (November, 2024) Ram Dass & Thich Nhat Hanh/ World Forum 1995/ Full Interview Re-Mastered. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR1adXsNyw0&t=1384s
Well...I am now up to over 300/day readers or hits or whatever you call them. I don't have much faith in those numbers. I do not think I am reaching 300 people ...maybe some bot activity again. It's okay...all I need is a couple of students in front of me and I will lecture.
Who am I kidding?...I still come here when there is no readership. lol
(I wrote this yesterday and felt embarrassed in making the assumption that I was a "teacher". [Still have that battle between shamer and redeemer ego within me. I go between trying to redeem myself with the role I had in the past and the concern I still have about what others might think...even after all my practice. lol] I am not a "spiritual tecaher" ...just a learner. I make that lecture analogy based on my times in a college lecture hall...and how silly it would seem to be lecturing to empty seats. I never did that before in real life either. Though I am convinced sometimes the sudents wished their seat was empty during some of my lectures lol.)
It is all good.
What will you do about what happened? You have two choices...accept or resist.
Michael A. Singer
Please Accept!
There is a difference between surrendering and acceptance, as Michael A. Singer explains in the below linked podcast.
Accepting does not mean that we do not "do", that we do not participate or take action in life. It simply means when we truly accept we do not react to life circumstance with ego. We do not resist. Our doing becomes inspired doing rather than reactive doing.
Just do your best...if you do your best at what ever you are doing all the time what comes back is your teacher
Reality is reality. Can you handle it?" If you can't accept reality it will cause a lot of trouble
Respond do not react...dharmically interact...not because of ego but to serve the situation.
Surrender the part of you that cannot accept reality.
As I was listening to Singer speak yesterday, I was reminded of one of the lessons I taught my practical nursing students about dealing with crisis. So often in nursing we come across unexpected emergencies that require clarity and immediate action. Too often we may rush in to act with unclear heads...heads and bodies full of panic and fear. That does little good and can even make the situation worse. I explained to these students that the few seconds it may take to practice the three B's could make the difference between life and death.
3 B's
I have no fear nor death; I never hunger or thirst. I am It! I am It!
The Whole of nature cannot crush me; it is my servant.
Assert thy strength, thou Lord of lords and God of gods!
Regain thy lost empire!
Arise and walk and stop not!!
Vivekananda ( What he would tell himself in the height of depression, when he felt like giving up)
Vivekananda tells us in Practical Vedanta and Other Lectures...to speak to ourselves in this way when we are feeling small and powerless...succumbing to depression or this idea of 'death'.
Thus, whenever darkness comes, assert the reality and everything adverse must vanish.
Help thyself out by thyself...
Get hold of the Self, then. Stand up. Don't be afraid. In the midst of all miseries and all weakness, let the Self come out, faint and imperceptible though it be at first. You will gain courage, and at last like a lion you will roar out, "I am it! I am It!". I am neither a man, nor a woman, nor a god, nor a demon; nor any of the animals, plants, or trees. I am neither poor or rich, neither learned or ignorant. All these things are very little compared with what I am: for I am It! Behold the sun and the moon and the stars: I am the light that is shining in them! I am the beauty of the fire! I am the power of the universe! For, I am It! I am It!
Whoever thinks that I am little makes a mistake, for the Self is all that exists because I declare it does. Without me they cannot remain, for I am Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss Absolute- ever happy, ever pure, ever beautiful. Behold the sun is the cause of our vision but is not itself ever affected by any defect in the eyes of anyone; even so am I. I am working through all organs, working through everything, but never does the good and evil of work attach to me. For me there is no law, nor karma. I own the laws of Karma. I ever was and ever am....
My real pleasure was never in earthly things-in husbnad, wife, children, and other things. For I am like the infinite blue sky: clouds of many colours pass ove rit and play for a second; they move off, and there is the same unchangeable blue. Happiness and misery, good and evil, may envelope for a moment, veiling the Self; but I am still there. They pass away because they are changeable. I shine, because I am unchangeable. If misery comes, I know it is finite, therefore it must die. If evil comes, I know it is finite, it must go. I alone am infinite and untouched by anything. For I am the Infinite, that Eternal, Changeless Self."
This is so beautiful and wise. I'll come back to it again but for now just soak it in.
All is well.
Vivekananda ( n.d.) 2.6 Practical Vedanta and Other Lecture. Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Kindle Edition
By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.
Christopher Columbus ( not sure if good old Chris actually said that...like how would we know lol...but I like the quote)
I have been dealing with obstacles in life and in the creation of this imperfect video, let me tell ya. The more obstacles I encountered, the more I was determined to get it done and up. I am not sure I am finished with it yet, lol.
Anyway...here it is...an expression of what has been on my mind for a few days after pulling out this question from the jar.
All is well
If you have a problem...you have a problem.
Michael A. Singer
Huh?
The only problem there is...is the thought that "I have a problem."
The only problem is what the mind is telling you about what is unfolding in front of you...not what Life is giving you or not giving you.
You are a speck of dust that happens to breathe, sense, think, and feel on a bigger speck of salt rotating around a star that can hold 1.3 million of this speck of salt we call Earth. You are given a tiny little crumb of Life to experience...this crumb is much, much bigger and grander than you but it is still just a crumb. ...a tiny piece of all there is to experience but man, is it magnificent!
Yet we take this wide angle of consciousness from which we get to explore the world we are given and narrow it down even farther...down to the immediate vicinity of this speck we are...and from there to that which directly effects the inside of this speck. Why? Because the speck is not okay inside and that light is so drawn to that okayness and anything that will make it okay. We become consumed with problems.
Why am I not okay?
That is the question we should be asking but instead we ask, "What can I do to be okay?" . With that question directing us our focus narrows even more. We grab and cling...resist and stuff and store. We create problems. Sigh
Anyway...that is something we need to look at.
All is well.
I suppose if we don't think about it...we are happy.
Kim Eng
Are you happy? Or are you so busy thinking about not being happy that you do not realize you are happy? Are you so busy filling the space that you are with thinking and doing that you forget you are that space?
Do you see yourself as a seperate little entity with lots of problems? Despite my practice and my 'knowing better' I still see myself in that way a little too often. Sigh
I asked D. this question yesterday: "Why do I feel I have problems? Why do these things bother me...this human ... when I am just a speck of dust having an amazing opportunity to explore a beautiful and colorful speck of dust in an infinite universe? "
He just looked at me strangely and shrugged his shoulders. And I felt myself having a problem with him and his reaction to my question. lol
Kim Eng in her "Who am I" meditation video says, "I suppose if we don't think about it...we are happy."
I am often too busy thinking about problems to realize that I am happy. What about you? And I have had a committed spiritual practice for many, many years.
Michael A. Singer reminds us in the below linked podcast :
It is not about how to solve problems...it is all about why do I have them.
Why then do we have this experience of focusing so much on "problems" and our so called suffering?
Well first, what is suffering? Suffering means you are not completely at peace and content...the cause of suffering is desire/preferences
It takes two things to suffer...it takes the world unfolding the way it does and it takes you who desire and prefer it to be different than it is...
We are not okay and that decides what we are going to do in this lifetime. Like the little bird on the lower branches in the story I shared yesterday, we are always jumping around trying to feel better. We are always attempting to escape the moment we are in, not completely satisfied with it because it is not "fixing" what is not okay inside us. We are always trying to decide what will make us happy and what will make us okay inside. We miss our entire life when we do that.
There is a higher way to live. That higher technique involves accepting, appreciating, respecting, and honoring reality as we clean out the mess inside that prevents us from being open to it all.
Hmmm!
All is well in my world.
Kim Eng/Eckhart Tolle (2020) "Who Am I" Guided Meditation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk5dlmylOZk
Michael A. Singer/Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True. ( January 13, 2025) Why We Suffer: a Spiritual Persepctive on Problems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WuETyBIpY8
He whom I have described to you as the Life of this universe, as present in the atom, and in the suns and moons - He is the basis of our own life, the Soul of our soul. Nay, thou art that.
Vivekananda
There is a lovely analogy I heard many times that research tells me comes from both the Rig Veda Samhita, the greatest of all the Vedas (writings that help to preserve the rites and traditions of Hinduism) and the Upanishads (writings about the philosophy of enlightenment associated with the Hindu religion [Jainism and Sikhism as well?] ) Vivekananda shares this story many times in his "Great Works" which I am reading from every night before I go to bed. It is a long, long, collection. I am sure I will still be reading from it when I am 75 if I am still here on this planet lol.
I read this story again last night and knew it was perfect timing to do so. I am going to share it in my own words.
Two Birds in the Same Tree
Two birds sat on the same fruit tree. One, a restless and hungry bird, jumped around on the lower branches from fruit to fruit attempting to quench a hunger it could not seem to quench. It rustled the branches and created disturbance for all other insects, birds, and rodents that attempted to nest or feed on those branches. It broke off twigs and destroyed the growth of new leaves with its never-ending restlessness. It created a lot of noise.
Another bird sat on the top branches with its colorful plumage radiating the day's golden light, especially around its stately head as if it was being coronated to high ranks by the sun itself. This bird was quiet and still for the most part but when the wind blew from the north it moved gracefully to the south; when the wind blew from the south it moved gracefully to the north. It did not jump around. It did not make a lot of noise. It simply sat there in its majestic pose and with its head up high taking in the rain when the rain fell; basking in the sun when the sun shone. It was a magnificent thing to see.
At first, the bird on the lower branch was completely unaware of the other bird above it. It was too busy tasting the abundant fruit that grew in plenty on the lower branches. Most of this fruit was sweet and quenching and the bird ate in delight, finding happiness with each bite, but only to find minutes afterwards that it was still hungry and thirsty again for more. So, it would jump noisily around from one fruit to another in search of that sweetness it came to prefer. Not all the fruit, however, was sweet. Despite its similar appearance, some of the fruit the bird hungrily dug its beak into turned out to be bitter and distasteful, making the little bird recoil and spit out the flesh as quickly as it took it into its mouth.
The bird's restlessness increased. It was desperate to eat only from the sweet fruit and to avoid tasting the bitter but there was no way to tell what the fruit would offer until its beak was already sunk well into the flesh of the fruit it had chosen and it had no choice, then, but to taste what was there. There was then, a lot of sucking in for this bird on the lower branches and a lot of spitting out, a lot of trial and error, and a lot of hopping between happiness and misery. There was very little calm or peace for this little bird living on the lower branches. Sigh!
Then one day the bird on the lower branches bit into an exceptionally bitter fruit that burned its throat and made its stomach turn with disgust. No matter how much it spit out it could not get rid of the taste of the bitter fruit and the sickening feeling it left him with. In fact, with every attempt to spit out it was actually drawing in the bitterness to be stored in its cells, a reminder for the body not to ingest such fruit again.
The bird was miserable. Recoiling from the onslaught to its senses it looked up and was suddenly taken by the golden aura of the bird on the top branches. This bird, the lower bird noticed, did not seem to be disturbed by bitter fruit. It seemed satisfied and healthy. It was not restlessly jumping around. It was still and calm. There must be, the lower bird decided, an abundance of sweet fruit and an absence of bitter on those top branches where this majestic bird sat so satisfied and so stately.
"I must move up," the bird exclaimed. "This other bird is quite high above me. I must begin my climb one branch up at a time to a better life."
The bird on the lower branches climbed to the branches above it, seeking the sweetness it was longing for and an end to bitterness. It was still hungry, so it began to peck away at the fruit that was there. At first, there indeed seemed to be nothing but sweet fruit and the bird was happy. It forgot all about the majestic bird on the top branches and its commitment to climb to the top. It happily jumped from one fruit to another thinking to itself that this branch was paradise. This was where all the sweetness and the freedom from bitterness was. The bird thought it could indeed be happy here. That is until, it bit into another fruit that was more bitter, more repugnant than the one it had eaten on the lower branches. Sick and miserable, it once again looked up at the bird on the top branches. glowing in the sun light. This bird it noticed, had not moved since the last time the lower bird looked up. The bird on the upper branches was not jumping from sweet to bitter fruit because it wasn't jumping at all. It was not moving from wellness to sickness, from happiness to misery. It was stable and calm where it was.
The lower bird, so sick of going back and forth between the extremes of its experience, longed for that condition the upper bird was glowing with. "I must keep climbing," it said. "I must get to the top."
With every branch higher the little bird climbed, the canopy became thinner, and the sunlight was able to ripen and sweeten the fruit in an amazingly tempting way. The little bird began to eat the fruit on every higher branch to find it even sweeter than the one below. Its hunger intensified and once again it would begin to jump from fruit to fruit, thinking it was already in paradise, forgetting all about the bird on the top branches above it. That is until it hit that bitter fruit and became consumed with the suffering of it. Then it would look up and see a higher state of being reflected in the golden bird in the upper branches and it would begin once again to climb up higher towards it.
The little bird climbed and climbed and climbed....it ate and ate, and it ate. It forgot its mission again, and again. And it remembered with every bit of suffering it endured...again, and again, and again.
When the little bird from the lower branches was near the top but still too far away to touch the golden bird at the very top, it moved up to another branch where the fruit was even more abundant and tempting to its still hungry belly. From this high up, it could smell the sweetness coming from the sun ripened fruit and the lowly hunger stirring within became so intense the bird could not resist. It began to eat of the most divine tasting fruit it had ever tasted. Sweet, sweet, sweet... and was once again, convinced that it had reached the top, forgetting all about the bird above it. But as on all the other branches, once again it bit into a bitter fruit. This time the bitterness was so intense, the juice so toxic it made the bird so sick and miserable, it longed for death. It lay on the branch writhing in pain and once again looked up. It saw the still, calm, majestic bird on the top branches that was neither searching for the sweet or avoiding the bitter; that was neither dependent on the body being well or succumbing to the feeling of the body being ill; and that was not desperately trying to be happy nor desperately trying to avoid misery.
"That is what I want and need," the lower bird said once again. "I must stop chasing after sweetness and running from the bitterness. I must get up there."
The lower bird pulled himself up from the high branch it was laying on and moved slowly and painfully up to the branch above. Instead of eating there, it climbed to the next branch and then the next. As it got closer to the top, the lower bird noticed how the golden reflection from the higher bird was now landing on its own feathers making them dance with delight. The little bird became inspired to keep climbing. It then felt its body getting lighter and lighter the higher it climbed toward the magnificent bird at the top of the tree they shared for years. It noticed how its own claws that were grasping for the branches began to melt away, its beak seemed to disappear from its vision as it got closer to its destination. Then just as it approached the top branch ...the lower bird felt itself slowly melting away as it was absorbed into the body of the majestic golden lighted bird that sat so peacefully at the top of this tree. The lower bird suddenly realized there was only one bird in the tree the whole time. The little bird from the lower branches was and has always been the higher bird.
Now, I could summarize that and explain it but it could never be as clear as to how Vivekananda explains it in the below:
The lower bird was, as it were, only the substantial-looking shadow, the reflection of the higher; he himself was in essence the upper bird all the time. This eating of fruits, sweet and bitter, this lower, little bird, weeping and happy by turns, was a vain chimera, a dream: all along, the real bird was there above, calm and silent, glorious and majestic, beyond grief, beyond sorrow.
The upper bird is God, the Lord of the universe; and the lower bird is the human soul, eating the sweet and bitter fruits of this world. Now and then comes a heavy blow to the soul. For a time, he stops the eating and goes towards the unknown God, and a flood of light comes. He thinks that the world is a vain show. Yet again the senses drag him down, and he begins as before to eat the sweet and bitter fruits of the world. Again an exceptionally hard blow comes. His heart becomes open again to divine light; thus gradually he approaches God, and as he gets nearer and nearer, he finds his old self melting away. When he comes near enough, he sees he is no other than God, and he exclaims, "He whom I have described to you as the Life of this universe, as present in the atom, and in the suns and moons - He is the basis of our own life, the Soul of our soul. Nay, thou art that."
All is well in my world.
Swami Vivekananda ( n.d.) 2.6 Practical Vednata and other Lectures. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Kindle Edition
In its own way, everything is beautiful.
Michael A. Singer
More words of wisdom from today's podcast:
Chaos demands to be recognized and experienced before letting itself be converted into a new order.
Herman Hesse
The mind's addiction to negative drama often gets us chasing after disturbance. Instead of just peacefully watching and participating without attachment to the ripples caused by the uncomfortable or unpleasant experiences of life ...we have a tendency to chase after them, don't we? To do something about them. Then, what do we do when we get them? We cling to them by stuffing and storing them inside. Hmm! How healthy is that?
Well, I wrote this little poem a few months ago related to this chasing after and clinging to disturbance that most of us do and I put it up on my video page as some spoken word. Why I put imperfect poetry in imperfect videos up, I may never know lol. This disturbance-chasing-and-need-for-redemption ego certainly doesn't like it, let me tell ya. Maybe that is why I do it. I am so sick of listening and following the directions of an egoic mind,
Anyway, all is well.
Nothing real can be threatened
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
Introduction to A Course in Miracles
I need to remind myself of that over and over again. We all should. It helps to bring us back to what is real and important...to steer us away from fear back into love. Hmm!
What is Fear. F.E.A.R. False Evidence Appearing Real. What is the creator and maintainer of the fear? Ego...this self concept we created and have come to believe we are...and that which does everything it can to convince us that our fear causes are real and out there....is the creator an maintainer of our fear.
Michael Singer reminds us in somewhat paraphrased form,
You are not the ego. You are not the sum of your learned experiences. You are the consciousness that is aware of your psyche-the sum of your learned expereinces. You are the indwelling being inside that self concept that you pulled around yourself.
Yoganada said that the masquarading self is the ego molded by our past experiences.
Peace is our birthright. It is who we are. Yet, we are always getting disturbed.
How do we stop getting disturbed by Life and thought and emotion...all that is so statistically insignificant compared to what is real?
The peace is in knowing who we really are and who we are not as we commit to allowing this masquarading self erode away and as we let go and release all the samskara junk we stored for years. This is the only way to not get disturbed by the unreal.
All is well.
A Course in Miracles...Foundation for Inner Peace
Michael A. Singer/ Sounds True/ Temple of the Universe (January 6, 2024) The Art of Living in the Now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMEVyj-IoLA&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1
Spirituality is about noticing what you mind is doing and noticing that it ain't too healthy.
Michael Singer
I have been struggling to meditate lately with a clear and empty mind. I get pulled into thoughts about all the drama going on oustide me and inside me so quickly. I catch myself and say" Just a thought" "Just thinking" and I ask the question, "Who is thinking these thoughts?" "Who am I?" I might find a second or two of shunyata before I am pulled back into a thought stream again. My addiction to thinking is pretty prevalent in my life right now. This "drama" induced thinking is so powerful. I do forget that I am not the personal mind that creates this type of thinking. I become the character in life's drama.
I know thoughts are just thoughts, and 'personal'' human events...regardless of how intense they might seem...are just statistically insignificant. Yet, this drama playing out in front of me is so compellling...so well scripted and orchestrated to draw my personal mind into it...that I get lost in character both when I am facing the events in present time and when I am thinking about them in future and past tense. I forget that I am simply playing a role here. I forget that I am just the actor and not the tragic heroine in this play. I really get lost in character. Hmm! Everything seems so real and so tragic.
I miss "empty mind" moments. I miss being the actor enjoying playing this role. I miss being in the Seat of Consciousness. I am still able to be the "witness" for a while but there is state of being that exists beyond the witness consciousness that I long to reconnect to. It is a struggle to get back to it. Personal thinking mind is just so powerful right now...it is hard to seperate from it.
I had a quick visualization last evening during my practice. I saw myself sitting in meditation like a well lit lamp and then I watched as this cloudy veil or shade kind of descended over the light dimming it...making everything foggy. I realized that who I am at the core level is light but this focus on thought and life event is veiling that light of who I am. It is dimming the experience of peace.
Why is this veil so thick right now?
I have fear in my heart. Fear is of ego...of this veil or shade...and it makes us forget who we are. I have fear over what the people we have been dealing with...lead by one toxic personality...will do next. My body is actually in fight or flight.
I had another visualization...or maybe it was a dream (I only remember waking up with it in my head)...of a large cement culvert around a large deep and dark hole. The rim of the culvert was fairly narrow and challenging to walk around. My son and I were needing for some reason to circle this culvert to prove something to someone. We had to make so many circles around to prove ourselves...and it was deterimental that we did. But there they were standing and watching. This one toxic person ( the ring leader of the family, someone I once thought of as a friend) began pouring oil all over the cement in an attempt to make it slippy so we would fall in. We cannot stop to stop her because we have to make so many circles in order to prove ourselves. We try to tell those that are ordering us to complete these circles what she is doing but they don't care. We still need to make our circles and it is sooo slippy. My son, who is walking in front of me, slips on the oil and I reach out to grab him, losing my own balance, before the dream or visualization ends.
This is just a fear-created thought but it weighs so heavy on me. I felt so much in that visualization or dream: powerlessness, fear, worry for my son, desperation, the injustice of it, the complete disbelief over how far humans will go for control, and hate.
It is a very negative thought and it haunts me. I pay attention to it. I focus on it. It pulls me in and it pulls me down. It pulls me away from empty mind and I begin to believe it, instead of the peaceful center, is my reality. I begin to believe this character I am playing in this drama is who I am...a victim whose destiny is controlled by a villian.
Man...what do you do with that?
I need to remind myself that it is just the personal mind that is talking, not who I really am. It is my ego not my soul. And the drama created by this mind is only real to egos.
Syncronistically, I listened to Michael Singer today talk about this. In somewhat paraphrased form this is what I heard:
You are in there noticing what the mind is saying= witness consciousness= witnessing the mind instead of being the mind. You are the consciousness experiencing what the ego is doing
You are so attached to staring at the personal mind...Ego is like a little computer program running constantly inside the mind...built on past experiences and the development of preferences and aversions
Thought patterns are built in a tiny part of the infinite mind...
We need to examine our relationship with our mind...we are not our personal mind...it is just a copulation of things we collected and stuffed on top of this field of energy we call mind and we identified with these things
We created a self concept...and a self concept is not who we are...it is just something we made up in our mind to define this 'self'
We need to just stop listening and put our attention somewhere else...We don't have to listen to what personal mind says...
We need to learn there is always peace inside despite the fact we have this ego and we need to stop feeding it...
Mind tends toward negative thinking...so positive thinking can be a helpful distraction from the negative mind's effect
If you are filled with joy it doesn't matter so much what happens
I would rather feel love than fear
Soul birth= the release of samskaras that block the flow of Sat Chit Ananda
Hmm! I would rather feel love than fear. I would rather be free of any blockages that pollute and disrupt the flow of peace and love within me.
This experience of life events is helping me to release some old blockages so I can get pure and clean again. I see what my mind is doing and I know I don't have to listen to it. This personal mind is not who I am. It is just something I am addicted to. It is time to get sober.
You can get more stinkin with thinking than you ever can with drinking ...
Hmm!
All is well.
Michael A. Singer ( November, 2024) The Mind Unveiled. From Addiction to Awareness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiQY5WknNOY&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=9
The myths underlying our culture and underlying our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe but only parts of it, only in it, only confronting it...aliens. We are quite urgently in need of coming to feel we are the eternal universe.
Alan Watts
These are some gems of wisdom gained from listening to Alan Watts today:
All is well!
Official Alan Watts Org. (2020) Alan Watts-What is Reality? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpHqYnFELLE&t=3175s
But now a great thing in the street
Seems any human nod,
Where shift in strange democracy
The million masks of God
C.K. Chesterton
Imagine seeing behind every human nod...God behind the mask every human wears. Imagine being able to see infinite colour and hear endless sounds. Imagine acting with nothing but inspiration in your heart and absolute stillness in your mind. Imagine experiencing all the things the senses are picking up from this world around you without naming, labelling, or conceptualizing any of it. Imagine. discovering the magic of the most ordinary moment the mind so often ignores. Imagine, seeing no difference between the transcendental world and the everyday world. Imagine fully living in the "Unspeakable world." (Korzybski)
Alfred Korzybski, a polish born engineer and philosopher, also said that " The map is not the territory." ...meaning that the experience of Life cannot be adequately reduced to symbols: language or the mind's interpretation of what the senses are picking up. Life is not our thoughts.
Alan Watts tells us in the below linked video:
Just as you have to stop talking to hear what others have to say, you have to stop thinking to find out what life is about.
You can only be truly creative when the mind is still
When you don't name things any longer you start seeing them
Imagine truly "being" in Life instead of just thinking and talking about it.
All is well in my world.
Alan Watts/T & H (August, 2024) Alan Watts For When You Need To Stop Thinking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVerqpMjYYg
Wikipedia ( January 2025) Alfred Korzybski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski
Acknowledgement has great power. ...Merely acknowledge and accept as valid everything that goes on inside you and who you are....Whoever you are at the core, just let yourself be that way....There is an old saying in therapy that captures this principle well: You have got to be where you are to get to where you are going. If you resist and deny where you are and who you are, its hard to move onto where you want to be.
Bill O'Hanlon
We have tendency when we resist events, what others are doing, or what we are feeling...to shame or blame. We feel shame for our inadeqauacies or we blame others or Life for theirs.
I goof up so much in my practice...and sometimes I sink into shame for my lack of evolution or spirituality. I sometimes blame others for their lack of evolution or spirituality. I am not always very forgiving. If I didn't judge either as "bad, wrong, shouldn't be" there would be no need for forgiveness...there would just be acceptance and appreciation of being where we are at.
Hmm! There really is no room for shame or blame in this growth and learning we are here to do as human beings.
All is well!
Michael A. Singer (January, 2025) Reconnecting with your Natural State of Joy and Love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6EJWp20Kpg&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1
You are in the world doing your thing but you are not...You are literally God descended playing in His universe and you are aware of it every single second...Realization is not a philosophy...you do not have to defend it...you are It.
Michael A. Singer
I love philsophy because I love to use my thinking mind to contemplate higher ideals. Of course, the more I philosophize, the less I realize and actualize. Sigh.
Philopsphopy, according to what Michael Singer shares in the below linked podcast, is what your mind does and truth is simply who you are. Philosophy is of the mind and truth is the experience of reality. As I evolve I am seeking truth over a philosophy. (But I am still drawn to philosophy!)
I have, obviously, been intrigued by yoga philosophy for many years. The yoga philosophy did not come from mind...but some very great being who sat down one day and all of a sudden had the realization that they were the one that was looking at things and not what they were looking at. This is experiencing reality directly.
You are not going to know consciousness by thinking about it or looking away from it to what it is looking at. No one can know consciousness more than you can. Why? Because you are it
Why don't we know this consciousness that we are? Because we are distracted away from it into the drama of a self concept called "me". Our "me" is riddled with samskaras that block the realization of who we are. We need to cleanse away these samskaras.
Cleansing means knowing that stuff stored inside needs to come up ...don't hav eto go down to pull it up...just need to let it come up ...just let go of your stuff
That way we can become free of the distractions and instead of being pulled into the play of thought and emotion we can stay where we are and have always been: In the Seat of Consciousness. We begin to experience truth directly. That is yoga.
All is well.
Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True (December, 2024) Beyond Philosophy: Experiencing the Truth of Consciousness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj8GD_JXL6U&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1
Write it down. Written goals have a way of transforming wishes into wants; can'ts into cans; dreams into plans; and plans into reality. Don't just think it-ink it!
Michael Kords
Writing Goals for 2025
The curriculum is your humanity.
Ram Dass
All these mistakes we are making as human beings are intricately designed into the curriculum. All these challenges, confrontations, and conflict with difficult people, all these 'gains' and 'losses', these so called "successes" and "failures"...are a part of that same curriculum. They are not "mistakes" or "flaws in the design" but very important pieces to the lesson objectives and therefore to our learning and growth. You can call this course or program "Life", "Being human", "spiritual development 101", "Karma", or "Fred". It doesn't matter what you call it or how you describe it with concepts and words. All that is important is the learning. Accept each lesson with gratitude and amazement...and you will go far.
All is well.
Ram Dass/ Be Here Now Network ( May, 2024) Ram Dass on Identity, Roles, and Living in Truth-Resting in "I Am"-Here an dNow Podcast Ep. 251 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxG1lA0rPEI&t=1940s
Absolutely no one according to my blog stats is reading my blog. Just 0...0...0...0 down the post page for months. This is strange even for me and my limited readership. I don't understand it and I wonder..."Hmm! Whom am I doing this for?" I am standing in that empty lecture theatre again...sharing all I have learned to the space. Still, there is this feeling that there should be at least one student sitting there? Did someone put a notice up somewhere that the College was closed? As long as those that need this crazy thing I offer know that I am here...and then they decide not to come, that's okay, that's on them...but if there is something else stopping them from showing up...that's on me. I gotta figure that out! Hmmm.
All is well
Don't just fight with the result; deal with the cause.
Michael Singer
Words of wisdom from today's podcast:
Ripples On a Lake
Tiny reflections of the sun
above,
glimmer and dance on the lake's
surface,
in perfect twinkling diamonds
of peace and presence.
The stillness, hidden in
the deep depths,
is called up to dance
with the
power of the Source
as the world sees itself in the mirror.
Standing on the shore,
I peek
in at the reflection
of my awkward human
form.
I inhale deeply,
breathing in
my only true desire...
that which the lake is offering
me now.
..perfection, peace, and
presence...
For the briefest of seconds,
I see clearly what I am to see.
Then, out of nowhere,
the wind
blows ...
and a leaf...a tiny browning
leaf...
is pulled from the nearby
branch
that it once clung so
tightly to.
It falls, twisting and turning,
in effortless circles.
I watch as it slowly and surely
drops
in one big exhale from my
distracted Life
to the perfectly still surface
of this lake.
It lands in the center
of my visual field
and in
an instant
stillness is disrupted.
Creating a tiny ripple...
a tiny disturbance
in the perfect
peace and presence
I have been witnessing,
the tiny ripple extends
outward
into another tiny ripple and
another...
until my reflection
becomes a
blurry mess.
I gasp in resistance
as the image of who I think I am,
the clarity and perfection,
the peace and presence of this
lake
is disrupted.
I spit out that disturbance
from my struggling lungs.
I watch as these ripples
swallow up the stillness
and I shout out "No!"
I know I must do something
about it.
I jump into the frigid
depths.
Splashing and splattering, I
swim
towards the leaf at the
center.
With great desperation and
contempt
I swoop it up with my trembling
hand.
It and the weight of my resistance
are like a heavy anchor within
me.
I am pulled down into the
depths.
Though there is something
oddly reassuring and familiar
in these waters below the
surface...
I refuse to be swallowed into
an abyss
I cannot make sense of with my
mind.
So, I struggle to surface
creating more ripples,
more
disturbance
with every splashing
effort I make.
The ripples turn into
waves,
and the waves into rip
currents...
I choke on the turbulent
water
as it fills my lungs
with each
breath I take in.
Yet, I will not let go.
I cling to the leaf even
tighter.
Somehow, I manage, with leaf in
hand,
to awkwardly and painfully make
my way
back to the shoreline where
I,
crawling on exhausted
limbs,
pull myself up from the
lake
with its now thrashing
waves.
I collapse into the sand,
the cause of disturbance
tucked neatly
in the palm of my clenched
fist.
I will not let it go.
I will hang on to it as a
reminder
of what I must do.
It takes a long time for the
waters
to return to their pure
state...
to perfection, peace and
presence... but they do.
I smile then,
pleased at
myself for my accomplishment
as I watch the sunlight flicker
and dance
once again on the clear
surface.
I can rest.
That is until...
the wind blows again
and another brittle leaf
falls to the lake's
surface
to start the rippling all over again.
©Dale-Lyn, September-December 2024
