The Power of Your Stories

Well dear friends, visitors and unsuspecting wanderers, I've been quiet for a while.  It's true I've been travelling but since returning to Brisbane some three weeks ago, I've been working away at reconfiguring and redesigning my services.  Consequently, I've not been sending my weekly emails and posting my weekly posts.

I shall write more about all of this another time when I really dedicate some head and heart space to it.  For now, however, I just want to share with you some quick and dirty (technically, I mean) pieces of work that I've been putting my heart and head into.  One of them is the short video above.  

I'd love to know what you get out of it, if anything, and any suggestions you may have for me.  I should tell you now that I'm getting my new website ready.  It will enable me to handle interest and enquires in my Copywriting, Meditation and Mind Mastery/programs, workshops and related activities.  It's pretty exciting and I trust you'll find something useful there too.  I shall keep your posted of course.

In the meantime, I trust you have all been keeping well and moving ever more confidently in the direction of your heart's desires!

With love, Lucy

How words keep us from experiencing the fullness and freedom of the Present

Image from Lucy's album

"In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better."Edward de Bono

It is said that as soon as you teach a child a word for something, it ceases to see the thing.  Instead, it sees an old image of the thing rather than the present image of it.  If and when it does see a present image, it can be a shock or a startling experience instead of being the natural, unmediated experience of the thing.

The implications of this are profound and far-reaching.  As adults, we have accumulated encyclopedias of words, as Edward de Bono so incisively states, whose original references stick with us and which, in turn, prevent us from seeing and experiencing afresh.

This is the reason why it is also said that clichés are expressions or observations that serve best the moment in which they were first created.  Thereafter, they become clunky vestiges of a once novel and original experience which we insist on reusing, hoping in vain to recapture their original power and dynamism.  In the process, our natural creativity doesn’t get the workout it thrives on because we have uncreatively repeated something whose purpose can only best be served once!

In the simplest of terms, our use of words, fetched rapidly and automatically from the repository of our intellect, does not serve our natural ability to be ‘present’.

But before we go any further, let’s examine that word:

present

These days, pretty much everybody has heard or used reference to the word ‘present’ whose use, for our purposes, stems from the practice of meditation.

The practice of meditation calls us to be ‘present’.  So what exactly does it mean?  To be ‘present’?

Well, for one thing, it means not being focused on the past or the future.  Right, so it means being focused on the present. 

And what exactly is the ‘present’ revealing to us? 

Well, when we sit in practice (or if we are used to practicing at all times), the present may reveal any number of things.  Let me give you an example of what I mean.

As I sit typing this, the ‘present’ for me is

·       An awareness of each letter as it appears on my screen

·       An awareness of the movement of my fingers across the keyboard

·       An awareness of the hard and smooth surface of the keyboard under the palms of my hands and the spongy feel of the keys as I press and release them

·       An awareness of the sounds of traffic, the clock ticking, an aircraft, the tapping of keys

·       An awareness of my feet in my boots and the watch on my wrist

·       An awareness of the contact my posterior is making with the couch and my back with the cushion behind it

·       An awareness of the thoughts I am thinking including thoughts about you, an audience of some sort, indistinct but real insofar as I feel I am communicating with you

·       An awareness of the tightness of the hair tie around my hair

·       An awareness of a sigh as it is happening

And so on…

Now, all this is not necessarily sequential.  I am often aware of many things simultaneously.  In fact, the more we practice being ‘present’, the more awarenesses we have simultaneously. 

Notice, being ‘present’ is really being ‘present’, attending to what is happening in real time where the past and future are not featured EXCEPT as awarenesses of our thoughts about the past and future.

This is really important.  There is a difference, a very big and important difference in thinking about the past/future and being aware of our thoughts about the past and future.

Thinking about the past keeps us trapped in a repetitive cycle.  Thinking about the future, if it merely a projection of past experiences and anticipation, is uncreative.

However, being aware that we are having thoughts about the past and/or the future is awareness and awareness keeps us unattached, which means it frees us!

Oh wow!  If you want freedom, this is it!  Stay aware!  Stay present!

It is when you are ‘present’ and ‘aware’ that you see things as they truly are, not as replays of past images or stories but as real time apprehensions of what is.

Think about that for a moment.  As an instance of application, when you see a friend, do you see them as they are right at that moment or is your perception of your friend layered with memories of what you know of him/her?  How do these memories (largely stored and communicated through words) help or hinder your ability to be really ‘present’ with and to your friend?

Now, here’s something to really get your mind around:  When you keep thinking in terms of words, words that have been used and reused billions of times, you cannot have a real-time, fully present, fully creative, fully sensorial, fully integrated experience of what is.  Instead, you have a hugely limited, largely intellectual experience of what was, aided of course by that vast repository in your brain called your memory.

In our so-called modern, western civilization, we have been conditioned into a disproportionate use of our intellect at the expense of allowing our multi sensorial faculties to function. 

Often, when I ask someone how they are ‘feeling’, they might say something like

I feel stupid

I feel okay

I feel like this is too hard

I feel like giving up

I feel powerless

‘Stupid’, ‘okay’, ‘too hard’, ‘giving up’, ‘powerless’ are concepts that are lodged in our memories.  We’ve come across them before either in the context of someone else’s experience or our own.

But what is the full, sensorial, integrated, multi-dimensional experience of how you are feeling right now?

Right now, if you were fully present, you would not be ‘feeling’ any of those things!  It’s impossible to ‘feel’ concepts unless you are relying on memory!  And even then, you’re thinking rather than feeling/sensing them.

If you were truly present, you would discover a freedom, that upon reflection might be mind-blowing, but in the moment, would feel so natural, so you!

And that has a great deal to do with leaving words out of the experience, or put another way, of not allowing words to mediate i.e. make meaning of the experience for you.

Now, imagine being increasingly in this state of freedom.  Imagine spending more and more of your day and your daily activities in this state of freedom.

Right now, it may seem so unrealistic or impractical or even undesirable to you.

What would I gain by being ‘present’ and experiencing ‘freedom’ when I have a job to go to, kids to raise, debts to pay, commitments to keep, obligations to fulfill, goals to achieve, relationships to make or break, dinner to prepare…

What good would being ‘present’ and experiencing ‘freedom’ do?

Let me describe to you what the status quo is for many of us:

·       We believe we must perform to justify our place in this world, in this society, in this family, in this workplace

·       We feel the stress of this pressure expressed in our internal dialogues, in our interactions with others and in our bodies

·       We believe that we are not entirely in charge of our lives and our wellbeing because there are always things that we cannot control

·       We believe not everything is possible because we are not the sole creators of our reality

·       We believe that happiness is a transitory state of being which must necessarily be interspersed with states of sadness, pain and suffering

·       We believe that we must make compromises in life

·       We believe that we are not really disserving of the most wonderful and abundant and joyous life possible

·       We dare not imagine what a wonderful, abundant and joyous life is possible for us

·       We constantly place conditions in our journey, in our relationships, in our desires

·       We frequently criticize ourselves and others

·       We are often unforgiving of ourselves and others

·       We remember the past and use it as our yardstick to map out the future when in our relationships, in our goal setting or in our work

I could go on but I think you get the picture. 

How many, if any, of these are freeing?  Do they inspire you to live the possible life that is so naturally and effortlessly yours?  Or do they keep you in a very small and tight circle of experiences where self-protection rather than self-expression is your constant preoccupation?  Where your experience of something, anything, no matter how new, is never completely new, is never completely fresh, is never completely available to your naturally creative abilities because you are not ‘present’?  Because you are conditioned to seeing, feeling, touching, smelling, tasting through words?  Because you haul into any current experience the oppressive and suppressive burden of your memory and insist on not only describing but having the experience with the rather inadequate tools of words, clichés and other well-worn expressions? 

Don’t get me wrong.  Words are wonderful things when used well, when used freshly, when used lovingly and evocatively as some of our greatest poets and leaders have done:

Benediction

Bless this little heart, this white soul that has won the kiss of
heaven for our earth.
He loves the light of the sun, he loves the sight of his
mother's face.
He has not learned to despise the dust, and to hanker after
gold.
Clasp him to your heart and bless him.
He has come into this land of an hundred cross-roads.
I know not how he chose you from the crowd, came to your door,
and grasped you hand to ask his way.
He will follow you, laughing and talking, and not a doubt in
his heart.
Keep his trust, lead him straight and bless him.
Lay your hand on his head, and pray that though the waves
underneath grow threatening, yet the breath from above may come and
fill his sails and waft him to the heaven of peace.
Forget him not in your hurry, let him come to your heart and
bless him.

Rabindranath Tagore

But they can also be potent memes that control us, if we let them, shaping our experiences in place of the experience of our naturally free and ever renewing state of being. 

So, how shall I sum up?  Perhaps in these few dot points:

·       Be present, be aware, be free, experience and express with all your senses (Note: ‘be’ does not refer to anything you have to ‘do’ but what you are)

·       Choose your words freely and lovingly, inspired by your heart

·       Rely less on clichés and other fast and favorite expressions

·       Find new ways of using old words and expression

·       Create new expressions and replace old ones with them eg ‘How are you?’  ‘How’s it going?’  Might be replaced by ‘It’s so lovely to see you’ or ‘I feel wonderful things happening for you’ (said, not prophetically like a fortune teller would but because you are ‘present’ to feel the wonder of your own and another person’s ‘be-ing’, the life force within both of you, the blessings of the universe on both of you regardless of what memory you or they are currently carrying on the surface)

Lovingly present, Lucy J

Do you need to 'control' anything?

Image from Lucy's album

You know, the original meaning of ‘control’ back in the 14^th Century was ‘check’, ‘verify’ or ‘regulate’ (as related to account keeping).  It was only in the 15^th Century that this word took on the more restrictive meanings of ‘restraint’, ‘prevent’ and even ‘eliminate’.

I like paying attention to words, how they are used, the impact they have and importantly, the inner (mental and emotional) realities that give rise to them and the outer realities (situations and events) that they help create.

Take for instance the words ‘Just do it’.  Three simple, everyday words with which Nike has successfully seared into the consciousness of a few generations the very positive and desirable association with their primary product – shoes!

On the face of it, what on earth has ‘Just do it’ got to do with shoes???  Yet, you’ll agree, I’m sure, that it’s hard to either say or hear those words without also thinking of that blockbuster brand or one or more of its famous poster boys/girls (Michael Jordan springs to my mind).

‘Just do it’ was inspired by the words, “Let’s do it”, which Gary Gilmore stoutly said when asked by the prison chaplain for any last words minutes before his execution in 1977!  Who would’ve thought that those words would spearhead a marketing strategy that still brings in the bucks!

The success that Nike gained through this inspiration was phenomenal.  With its evocative advertisements, ‘Just do it’ took on unprecedented meanings for millions of people whether or not they purchased Nike shoes. 

It fueled a spirit of daring and freedom by throwing down the gauntlet with those three simple words ‘Just do it!’.  And if you did decide to take the challenge seriously, well, all you’d be ‘competing’ with was... a pair of shoes. Too easy? You bet J.

Although Nike was advertising shoes (or so you’d think), it was in fact very deliberately (and cleverly, I might add), creating a new reality – one in which everyday people like you and I could feel the towers of greatness rise within us and smell the delights of success by ‘just doing it’, ‘it’ suggesting whatever it was you wanted to achieve in life!  Clever or what?

Now, it may seem like I’m doing a mini analysis of a marketing strategy but I can assure you that it is incidental to my main point, that being the power of words to create our reality.

Of course we know that the words in themselves have no power.  It is the meaning that is intended and the meaning that is interpreted that has that power. 

Those meanings are often drawn from a deep and long history over which words have been shaped and reshaped by collective and individual meaning making.

A word is a symbol pointing to a story, sometimes so vast and rich in its dramas, characters and unexpected twists and turns. 

A one letter word like ‘I’ or a three letter word like ‘you’, for instance, points to unfinished stories, dripping in possibilities yet also carrying what might appear to be well-defined and irreversible ‘pasts’.

All this to say that words, numerous and readily available as they often are, are important and to be used with care, or as I prefer to say, mindfully.

And this brings me to the word I set out to tackle at the start of this post.  The word ‘control’.

How often have you heard someone say, or said or thought the following yourself?

‘I lost control’

‘I feel I have no control over the situation’

‘I hate not being in control’

‘I need to be in control of…’

‘S/he is such a control freak’

In his book, The Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield writes about ‘control dramas’ in reference to the way people relate to one another.  Those who feel the need to ‘control’ others find a myriad of ways to do so both overtly and covertly.

Often when we speak of control, we speak from a basis of power and powerlessness where there is an uneasy tension between the two.  One person/party seems to have more power and can therefore ‘control’ i.e. restrain or curb or prevent the behavior and actions of another person/party.

Consequently, when we speak of wanting to regain control or maintain control or even have control, we are seeking to impose on our immediate sphere of influence, some holds or restrictions by which we can feel safe and protected.

Sometimes, these holds or restrictions are imposed upon other people such as objecting to a person speaking their mind or limiting their use of space to a certain area within a shared dwelling place or criticizing their work. 

Sometimes, these holds or restrictions i.e. forms of control are imposed in an overt manner, written or spoken, or they may be done more covertly through silent withdrawals, refusing to comment or even acceding to another’s demands no matter how unreasonable or undesirable they may be to us.

But trying to ‘control’ yourself, or another person or situation is really an act of restriction and constriction.  Whether you do it overtly or covertly, your motivation is to protect yourself and self—protection is always a restrictive and constrictive action fueled by fear which is in turn driven by the illusion of separation.

Now I have written about the illusion of separation and its effects in previous posts such as this and this. 

What I’d like to invite us all to consider here is an alternative.  In particular, a LOVE based alternative.

Firstly, it’s important to acknowledge that we all feel threatened and powerless (and more often than we are aware of).  Once again, I’ve already explained why we feel this way in previous posts such as this and this.

Some of us like to explain our need for self-protection and consequently our feelings of fear in terms of our evolution as a human species.  Certainly most scientists do.

But, as you may have noticed, alongside this aspect of our evolution which we are told is hardwired into the limbic part of our brain, the prefrontal part of our brain has also evolved. 

This part of our brain, which is the last part of the brain to mature, is responsible (and that itself is a wonderful word – response + able) for handling the more complex aspects of our thinking and behavior. 

In other words, we have the capacity to override some of the more primal instincts that we have acquired. 

More importantly, we have the ability to self-reflect and self-observe.  And this ability to self-reflect and self-observe gives us the powerful ability to change our thinking and consequently, create new realities!

When we self-observe, something we do in meditation, we become self-aware. 

Awareness is a remarkable experience.  It is the experience of our ultimate reality and this is how we experience our interconnectedness, our formless reality, our limitlessness and our creative nature.

Awareness is the experience of what some may call the ‘unified field of consciousness’ in which ‘energy’ (yes, a word, a symbol that we use) flows freely when it is unimpeded by the vibrations of THOUGHT, and more powerfully, by FEELING.

Yes, thought and feeling!

Energy is directed to thoughts and feelings and to their strongest vibrations which result in the physical and external manifestations of those vibrations.

When fear is the strongest vibration that we hold, energy will be drawn to it and will result in its restrictive and constrictive physical/external manifestations, first in our bodies and then in our words and actions. 

You find yourself getting tense, the muscles in your body, in your face constrict.  Your words are uncreative, reflecting the internal dialogues you’ve been rehearsing.  Your actions are self-protective, causing you to either attack or retreat. 

When we seek to control, we place our thought and feeling vibrations of fear in the naturally free-flowing energy field.  We are then destined to experience the less than satisfactory and often painful outcomes of this restriction and constriction of our naturally free flowing energy.

So, what is the LOVING ALTERNATIVE?

Well, first I think we need to ask the question:

Do we need to control?

Is there another way of moving from a state of powerlessness to a state of power, bearing in mind that our NATURAL STATE is one of true power.

Yes, of course there is!

It is the choice of LOVE – the ultimate and insurmountable energy state! 

Well, then, what might be the response of love?

Quite simple.  It is the response that fills you with joy, with peace, with a feeling of freedom and expansiveness, a feeling of deep power and poise J 

Now, exactly what is that response?

Ah huh, I wish I could tell you but that is something that you will have to allow your inner wisdom, your free, unconditioned, natural, clear-water mind to guide you in J

You see, there are many possible responses of love.  Well, of course there are, for love is the infinite field of possibilities!

In one instance, it may be to move yourself physically into a place of joy or openness like your garden or your favorite room.

In another instance, it might be to make a joke. 

In another, write or cook or work on some craft. 

Oh, but wait!  Wouldn’t these be forms of withdrawal and/or denial?

ONLY IF THAT IS YOUR MOTIVATION. 

Withdrawal and denial are ways by which the fearful mind seeks to impose control. 

But if your motivation is to RETURN TO YOUR NATURAL STATE OF PEACE AND JOY AND POWER AND LOVE, now that THOUGHT and that FEELING have completely different vibrations to the feelings of withdrawal and denial!

Consequently, energy gets drawn and reorganized in different ways in your body, in your words and in your actions.

You smile. The muscles in your face and body relax.  You feel light.  You engage in something creative rather than in addictive behaviors.  You have no ill-feelings towards the other person/party.  You don’t set out to fight anyone or anything.  Instead, you become more acutely aware of your oneness, your interbeingness, your natural state of harmony and wellbeing!

Try it and let me know if it doesn’t make a major difference to the way you deal with your feelings of powerlessness!

In my next post, I shall talk about other words that we frequently use and which may either hinder or help our ability to create our desired realities.  If you like, you may wish to reflect on some of them:

Reality

I, You

Love

Can’t/Can

Want/Need

Success

Fail

Lazy

Bored

Earn

Deserve

Justice

Freedom

Happiness

Honesty

In love, Lucy

How I tried to shut down my Greatness today

Image from Lucy's album

I want to share with you three ways in which I tried to resist my natural greatness today.  I say ‘tried’ because, in fact, it is impossible to resist greatness.

All our monumental effort in resisting our greatness only makes the futility of it painfully obvious when we come out the other end.

The more we struggle, the more we invest in the many and varied ways in which we seek to live and protect our smallness, the more frustrated, unfulfilled and desperate we feel.

The more we pursue the limited goals that we have been conditioned to value (no matter how vehemently we try and rationalize and justify them), the more we discover how utterly unsatisfying they are. 

Oh, sure, they give us temporary relief and pleasure like chocolate or sex or an extreme sport or any other kind of distraction that we seek from the gnawing, relentless hunger for our natural greatness. 

But, like the first taste of chocolate or the first tremble of sexual pleasure, it is gone before you’ve been fully satisfied.  And no matter how many more bites you take, how many different types of chocolate you try, how many more times you have sex or how many more partners you have, the pleasure is always limited and its duration increasingly shorter. 

In economics, they refer to it as the Law of Diminishing Returns…

It’s not a natural law but one that has emerged from a culture of consumption, itself an unnatural phenomenon. 

What is natural is not consumption but the movement and transformation of energy – the natural process of equilibration, of keeping things in balance.  But more of this another time.

For now, I want to stay focused on the matter of trying to stop or resist our natural GREATNESS.  In particular, I’d like to share with you three ways in which I did this today!

My reason for sharing this with you is to show you how common and frequent this behavior is.  In fact, it is so pervasive, it has become our default state, *it* being *living in smallness*.

I hope it will help you reflect on the ways in which you attempt to restrict your GREATNESS in the vain attempt to protect your smallness!

Crazy, isn’t it!!!  Living our lives desperately trying to remain small when it could be so much easier and infinitely more satisfying and fun to live GREAT! 

Crazy yet understandable when you realize that you’re not the only one trying to do this.  Virtually everyone else is massively preoccupied doing the same – pathetically trying to protect our smallness! 

And it is for this very reason that we feel the need to protect ourselves at all. 

For if you feel SMALL AND SEPARATED in a wild ocean of other creatures, some of whom you perceive as equally small, others as smaller than you and yet others as frighteningly bigger than you, then you are going to feel the need to protect yourself.

And in this preoccupation of protecting your (small) self, you have taken on beliefs and behaviors that dishonor and attempt to resist your natural GREATNESS!

So, let me give you some concrete examples of how I (and I’m sure many of you) inadvertently try to resist our greatness because we're so futilely preoccupied with our smallness WITHOUT even realizing it (except perhaps after the event)!

[What is more, in protecting our smallness while refusing to allow our greatness, we encourage others to do the same.  A consequence of this is that we find it hard to see and allow the greatness of others!]

Hurrying

I was hurrying as I washed the dishes this morning.

Why was I hurrying?  

Because I felt there was something more important that I needed to do – some work on the internet. 

In my need to protect my smallness, I have learned to value some things more than others.  Work that I do with clients and other people online is more important to me than washing dishes. 

Why? 

Because that kind of work makes me feel valued, more important, more significant.  It gives me a very false sense of my greatness.  But it my true greatness that I really want to experience!

Would I be thinking this way if I was aware of my greatness?  If I was aware of the great, infinite life-force that permeates every part of my being and every bit of the universe?  The life-force that is equally used to wash dishes and write blog posts? 

Not being present

As I was doing the dishes, I was thinking of what I wanted to write today. 

Why was I doing this?

Because, clearly, being present in the washing of the dishes did not strike me as a means of connecting with my greatness! 

Had I been aware of the natural greatness that I am and that is present in every moment, that is NEVER not present, would I not have found in washing the dishes the fulfillment, love and joy that my greatness naturally holds?

Thinking I was limited by geographical distance

I was thinking of my ideal life in terms of where I would like to live and what I would like to do.  I thought about my desire to live in the UK for a number of reasons, one of which is that Australia is so far from much of the rest of the world. 

Had I been more aware that my natural greatness knows no limits and sees no boundaries, I would not have had that thought.  Instead, I would have freely allowed my desires to take flight, being less preoccupied with how things would happen (since my greatness takes care of all that).

Getting in the way of our natural Greatness

Clearly, these are not the only ways in which I get in the way of my own greatness.  There are many, many more.  I suspect that this is true for you also.

So, what do we do about it?

I find that contemplating on some of the essential truths of life is a great help.  As I’m naturally curious about things (we all are), I am drawn to asking questions.  Questions such as:

Where does my strength and energy to do anything come from?  The energy to move my fingers, type on this keyboard, sing, eat, walk?  Where or what is the source of that energy ultimately? 

It’s not the food we eat or the sunlight that shines on the earth.  They, if you like are secondary or tertiary sources of energy.  But what is the ultimate source?  And is it separate from me?  How can that be so?

I realize that the ultimate source of energy, whatever name we wish to give it, flows through me and is not separate from me. 

It is the ever-present, all-pervading GREATNESS that flows through me and that has assembled me into this form that I am.  And it has done that without my micromanaging it!

It breathes me. 

Without it, I do not exist and neither does it!

And it is this GREATNESS that I am always seeking to experience and express because in the evolution of the human being, this GREATNESS has been increasingly shrouded from us by our belief in smallness, in limitation and in impossibility!

We’ve taken on an ill-fitting garment which bears the label of our individual name.  A garment that is way too small for the infinite GREATNESS that we are!

And you cannot wear such an ill-fitting garment for too long without suffering great discomfort and deformity! 

So, it’s time to take it off!  It’s time for us, you and I, to step out of this ill-fitting garment that we wear and that we call Lucy or Deborah or John or David…

It’s time to allow the FREE and FULL expression of our GREATNESS because that is what we truly are! 

And living a life that is anything less will never satisfy.

It's really that simple

Image from Lucy's album

You don’t have to compete with anyone or anything.  In fact, it is against the natural laws of the universe to compete. 

What you do need to do, what you are naturally drawn and excited and thrilled to do is open your heart and let the natural joy and power of the universe flow through it. 

Let it lead you to your natural desires, to your natural calling, to your natural bliss. 

Along the way, it will use your mind and your body to perform just those things that need to be performed, to assemble together just those things that need to be assembled, to gather together just those people that need to be gathered and to be in those places that need to be visited. 

In actual fact, all the work is being done by the Spirit, the energy of Creation, the power of Infinite Nature. 

Do you think you could possibly breathe or speak or move even the tiniest muscle without this power? 

EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING is powered by this same energy, this same life force, this same love force, this same Spirit, this same God.  There is nothing beyond it and it is the substance of all things.

Your job, and this may be a blow to your ego, is to simply ALLOW this force to do its work by listening to its prompts, following its prompts and offering it no resistance through thought, belief, fear, anxiety, demand, judgment or doubt.

In this sense, you are truly an instrument of this wondrous force.  

However, and this is a BIG ‘however, you do have an important role to play.  It is a key role because without this input on your part, this wondrous force will remain as infinite POTENTIAL waiting to manifest.

Offer DESIRE as the point of attraction for this wondrous force.  Offer desire so that this infinite potential can be marshaled and directed to bring into being that which you desire. 

You only have to offer this desire once but it must be with all your heart.  Anything less delays or interrupts the work of this force with respect to what you desire.

You see, the force itself is unstoppable and will always be directed to something that offers it no resistance. When that which is feared is unopposed, when it is not resisted, when it is left unattended or not transformed, the force will be directed to that which is feared.  Consequently, that which you fear will be brought into being by the force.

When you have a desire that is clouded with fear, doubt, confusion, anger or anything else that tarnishes the purity of your desire, the force will be marshaled in one or more of these directions since there is no resistance in their path.  Or, put more accurately, there is only allowance in one or more of these directions.

Consider for a moment, things that you have given fleeting desire to and then forgotten about.  

Have you noticed that they have been manifested?  That is because, having forgotten them, you have laid no resistance in their way.  Consequently, the force has been directed to them without any interference or delay.

When you have a desire that is clouded with doubt, fear, anxiety, unworthiness or any such thing, you will have to find a way of making that desire pure and unclouded, just the way it was when you first had the desire.

Until then, the force will be dispersed in one or more of the directions signed by those thoughts, beliefs or feelings that cloud your desire.

It really is as simple as that.

My Three Priceless Reminders

Image from Lucy's album

Believe it or not, there was a time when I could quite easily and rapidly free fall into the bottomless pit of despair or disappointment or frustration or rage…

During those times, a relentless cycle of thoughts and feelings would keep me helplessly trapped within its paralyzing grip. 

So consumed was I with my thoughts and feelings, I was completely oblivious of the fact that I was trapped and that I was cycling through the same disempowering state interminably.

Oh my, what a state that was! 

And all through it, I would be consumed with the injustices, the unkindness, the insensitivities, the bloody-mindedness, the arrogance, the callousness, the dishonesty, the insincerity, the ill-intent of the other party. 

I would be thinking and rethinking AND JUDGING for the thousandth and tenth time, what had been said, done, projected, alleged, not said, not done, not defended, not justified by the other party. 

I would be raging or despairing with my response at the time and feverishly rehearsing my better, more bold, more ‘I’ll show them!’ future response. 

Dialogues fueled by outrage or self-pity or condemnation or righteousness or fear would play in my mind almost unceasingly, only briefly leaving me alone if and when my attention was forcefully drawn elsewhere.

Needless to say, my responses to these troubling situations and events were never fulfilling and the outcomes that they generated were never satisfying.  On the contrary, they kept the ground fertile for future and almost inevitable conflict. 

Not all of these conflicts were overt and dramatic, out there in the open.  No, most, I would say, were of the stealthy type – understated, expressed often in silence, withdrawal, ignoring, avoidance, sulking, and a kind of saintly accedence. 

As you can imagine, none of these responses resulted in lasting peace. 

True, they did provide temporary relief and given the degree of mental and emotional (and physical – my stomach used to churn, I’d feel nauseous, throw up, be more prone to illness and injuries etc) turmoil I was in, the relief was vital, life-saving almost!

But, worst of all, despite all the mental, emotional and physical effort I would have invested in these situations/events, I never felt good about myself no matter how hard or how eloquently I defended my response while condemning the actions of the other party. 

Most of this prosecution and defense happened in my head, of course, though I would share some of its story with sympathetic friends. 

I kept telling the story over and over again as if repetition would make it -BECOME and FEEL true according to how I had construed it, of course. 

The thing is, it never FELT true although it may have sounded reasoned and convincing intellectually.

It was only when I took the time to observe and study the nature of the mind that I began to realize that in all these conflicts, these undesirable situations, these *injustices*,

·       I was the common link.  In other words, I was always present.  Without me, there was no story, no event, no disturbance, no turmoil

·       My thoughts and feelings, my outrage, disappointment, sense of injustice etc were learned and habitual, resulting from associations that I’d made from a long time ago, perhaps even while in my mother’s womb!

·       I was trying to protect a *me* that didn’t really exist in the way I believed it to be i.e. separate, finite, unchanging, condemned forever to its beliefs, habits of thoughts, words and actions

Whoa!  What a realization that was!  What liberation it offered! 

I knew I was onto a good thing.  I was going to continue to observe and study.  I was after PEACE, JOY and FREEDOM and I was going to find them and I did!

But it’s not over.  It’s an ongoing thing, a never-ending journey.  I am still discovering more and more about the mind, and experiencing greater peace, joy and freedom along the way.

Each time I experience a situation in which the old, disempowering habits of the mind arise yet again, I am better able to bring my mind into the light of truth, into its clear water mind state where its thoughts and behaviors are seen for what they truly are – passing clouds, mud that has been disturbed,

These thoughts, feelings, words, actions are not *ME*.  They arise in the field of consciousness but they are not *ME*.  They arise and, if I let them be, they just fall away. 

I do not attach to them nor avoid them.  I am no longer under their disempowering grip.  I simply see them as passing events and I let them pass. 

When we think and say, “This too shall pass”, often we miss the deeper truth underlying these words. 

It’s not that some mysterious, more powerful force, causes them to pass.  Rather, it’s we, you and I, who can and must choose to let them pass, seeing them as events, no more and no less than any other and which, when there is neither attachment to or avoidance from, will dissipate like clouds.

In other words, we ALWAYS have control over our response. 

Now, so many of us pay lip service to this idea, this assertion.  We will often readily say, ‘Oh yes, we can choose our response’. 

But as long as that response comes from a place of powerlessness, anger, frustration, indignation, retribution etc, in other words, as long as we respond from FEAR, we have not chosen FREELY.  Instead, we have merely responded from habit, from disempowering beliefs and associations also known as conditioning.

It is an unnatural response.

You need to understand that the response from fear is a self-protecting and separating response, reinforcing the ILLUSION of a separate, incomplete and un-whole self.

The response from peace, joy, power, freedom and love, on the other hand, is a natural response.  It is free, open, expansive and aligned with the TRUTH of a unified, complete, unconditioned and whole SELF in which there is no separation and no need for self-protection.

So, all that said, what are my Three, Priceless Reminders that help me quickly illuminate the habituated/conditioned mind and its beliefs, thoughts and behaviors with the pure light of Truth/Love?

My Three Priceless Reminders:

1.   This is an event/situation that my unnatural, conditioned, muddy water mind has construed as a result of long established beliefs and associations

2.   I am by nature Peaceful, Joyous, Powerful and Free

3.   When I respond from my natural state, I remain in the natural flow of Peace, Joy, Power and Freedom

How did I come up with these reminders that, by the way, I can apply to ANY situation? 

Through familiarization.  

And how did I familiarize myself with them?

By observing and studying my mind which I sometimes describe as the practice of meditation J

That’s right.  Not affirmation, not indoctrination, not acceptance of someone else’s realization or familiarization but MY OWN real-time observation. 

Wouldn’t you like to do the same?  I hope so J

Why don’t I do the things that I know are good for me? Part 2

Image from Lucy's album

In Part 1, I talked about

·       Limited goals and their limited benefits

·       The limitless goal of Self-Knowledge and its unlimited benefits

·       Our fundamental ignorance

·       Our ignorance about the fact that we are suffering using the analogy of drowning without knowing that we are drowning but nevertheless suffering the effects of oxygen deprivation (in an email to my mailing list).  You can join my mailing list here)

·       Intangibility, Ignorance and Delusion as our lived experiences and as obstacles to doing what we know is good for us

In Part 2, I would like to explore how we might realistically i.e. in do-able ways make the goal of Self-Knowledge a personal and highly desirable goal for ourselves and how we might go about accomplishing this goal.

I have often said, with equal humor and seriousness, that the people who seek my services as a mentor are those who realize they have suffered enough J

You see, so often it is only when we hit a crisis in life, be it the dreaded C or the loss of a loved one or the breakup of a relationship or the loss of a job or income or the loss of a purpose in life, that we are motivated to take serious action. 

Until then, when we hit the less extreme snags in life – the daily irritations in our relationships, the bouts of illness, physical discomfort or disabilities that we experience, the setbacks and disappointments that we encounter as we determinedly pursue our limited goals, we are impelled to seek limited, short-term ‘solutions’.

More often than not, these are not real solutions but short-term fixes, band aids that deal with the EFFECTS/SYMPTOMS of our problems rather than the CAUSES or should I say the singular CAUSE of our problems. 

Yes, I say CAUSE because all our suffering, all our problems are ultimately the result of the one cause, the mother of all apparent causes – our fundamental ignorance of who we truly are, our lack of SELF-KNOWLEDGE!

It’s only when it finally dawns on us that these short-term fixes do not prevent us from encountering the same sorts of problems again and again, throwing us into yet another turmoil or frustration or disappointment or crisis, that we consider the possibility of seeking a long term solution, a REAL solution.

And in the seeking of that real solution, we come to realize that there has only ever been one problem – the lack of self-knowledge, the ignorance of who we truly are, our ORIGINAL SIN if you like J

All other problems arise from this single, most fundamental cause – our fundamental ignorance of who and what we truly are.

Now, I realize that such a statement demands elaboration and explanation and if I were writing a book rather than a blog post, I would be providing them.  As it is, I am aware that my posts are already too lengthy for our increasingly short attention spans J. 

However, I dare say that what I’ve written so far, in Part 1 as well as several of my other posts, should give you plenty to chew on.  Certainly there are enough threads there to tie into my assertion that all our problems arise from our fundamental ignorance of who and what we truly are.

That said, perhaps it might help if I provided these key threads in dot points:

·       The belief that we are limited beings isolated as individuals in our bags of skin is a flawed belief

·       When, as science also shows us, we recognize the fact that at the most basic, fundamental level of the material world, matter is in fact non-physical, existing instead as waves of energy, then it becomes clear that the perceived boundaries between all objects, including people, are only apparent, not real

·       In other words, the energy fields that permeate and underlie all forms of physical and non-physical forms of existence are in fact of the one continuous energy field that some might describe as the Unified Field of consciousness

·       This makes the notions of duality and separation untenable

·       This reflects the notion of non-duality, of oneness, of the unified whole, of the all-encompassing as a reality and a certainty rather than a mere possibility

·       When we allow ourselves to enter into the experience of non-duality, of oneness, which we can do during meditation (or in some cases through ‘spontaneous’ realization), we will encounter this truth in a personal and irrefutable way

·       As we cultivate a deep, personal experience/knowledge of oneness, of non-duality, of non-separation, we realize that the limited goal of self-protection which is what preoccupies us all of our lives, is a disempowering goal because it does not recognize the simple fact that what I do has an impact on all else, whether (as I say in meditation practice) we see it or not, we know it or not, we feel it directly or not

·       In other words, I am not an individual, separate being but an INTERDEPENDENT being as the Buddhist teachings tell us or as the Buddhist monk and scholar, Thich Nhat Hanh describes it, we are INTERBEINGS

·       I, like all other forms of material existence, am and arise as a result of what is known in Buddhism as DEPENDENT ORIGINATION – I arise and exist as the result of many and various participatory elements such as the air, the cells of my body, the union of my parents, the plants that provide oxygen and food, the people that build the roads, houses and towns that I walk on and live in etc etc

·       When I have a deep and personal awareness of myself as an interdependent being, then my tendency to grasp at this thing called ‘I’, ‘Me’, and protect it over and above all else as a result of its fears and aversions and indulge it in its ceaseless cravings and attachments as a result of its limited view/belief of itself as ‘not enough’ or not ‘not good enough’ slowly begins to dissolve­

·       I begin to see others as very much a part of me, not separated from me and therefore ­­­­­a possible threat to me (can you see the implications of this in your daily relationships with your significant others as well as those people and things – including your various ‘medical conditions’-  that you have been conditioned to see as ‘other’, as ‘not me’, as ‘threats’, as ‘dangerous’, as ‘evil’?)

Now, .as a result of reading Part 1, someone asked me:

If we do not protect ourselves, if we do not make it our business to protect ourselves and those people and things and causes that we care for, how are we expected to survive in this world?

An excellent question! 

Here’s how I responded:

Firstly, how do you feel when you are preoccupied with protecting yourself, your interests, your causes, your possessions? 

(By ‘protecting yourself’, I mean the things that you typically do and acquire in order to safeguard your personal interests, eg your job, your children, your career, your status in your family and community, your possessions, your investments etc.  In other words, all the limited goals and their limited outcomes/benefits that you pursue and achieve)

Do you feel empowered?  Free?  Open?  Joyous?  At peace?  Inclusive?  Non-discriminating?  If so, how long does this last?  Is there a lingering fear that this is not going to be enough?  That sooner or later, more will be expected of you, whether by yourself or others?

If you're not entirely satisfied or comforted or encouraged by your answers, then perhaps it would be useful to ask: 

Well, what is the best alternative?

The best and most desirable alternative, I think you will agree, is to be able to feel empowered, free, open, non-discriminatory, peaceful, joyous, and inclusive.

So, what must we do?

Is it possible to achieve these states without having to protect ourselves?

Well, I think you will see from all that’s been said so far and from your own life experiences, that the limited goal of self-protection and all its fleetingly glamorous and enticing by-products don’t provide lasting and limitless benefits.

If we want lasting benefits, then we really need to keep our eye, our mind and heart on the true, meaningful and limitless goal, the goal of self-knowledge. 

How?

How do you set about accomplishing any goal? 

You give it a lot of thought, right?  You spend as much time immersing yourself in thoughts, ideas, things, people related to it, true?  You imagine all the benefits you will gain by accomplishing this goal and then you take whatever action you can in its direction.

The goal of self-knowledge requires a similar approach with far less effort!  Yes, I know, sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? 

The fact is, the harder you try, the less likely you are to succeed.  And the more preconceived ideas you have about it, the more obstacles you place in the path of your goal.  The key, therefore, is to immerse yourself in the experience. 

So, here’s what you do:

·       You consider whether this is a worthwhile goal 

·       You read or learn and reflect as much as you can about the benefits of such a goal and how these benefits come about

·       You read or learn and reflect as much as you can about why the limited goal of self-protection can never give you the lasting peace and joy and fulfillment that you so desire

·       You practice a little at a time allowing your mind to settle, to return to its natural state of peace, joy, freedom, limitlessness

·       You allow yourself to experience this natural, clear water mind state more and more

·       You engage in daily life more and more from this natural, clear water mind state

·       You experience for yourself the benefits of doing this

·       You make this your default state of engagement in lifeJ

The BEST ALTERNATIVE is to

·       Be fully present – which is your natural state

·       Act out of love, freedom, power, peace, joy and limitless possibility – all qualities of your true nature

If this is not how you are living your life, then the question to ask yourself is:

Do I want to?

And if you do, then you can and I have already pointed you in the direction of how J

If you want it, everything is possible.  Everything is within reach.  Everything is doable. 

If you want it J