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Wednesday, January 18, 2006

THE WINDOW OF WILLINGNESS

All you need for your life to transform is Willingness.

Without Willingness, nothing has ever showed up, can show up, or will show up in your life. But with open Willingness, your truest desires show up, in due time, and in a fashion consistent with the life you have designed for yourself.

That is a Life Guarantee.

Willingness is a state of being open and available to Possibility. Willingness is the key to manifesting. Without Willingness, nothing can work; with Willingness, anything is possible. It must be an absolute, unconditional and patient Willingness to ALLOW what you want, or something better, to manifest itself in its own time and in its own way. No cheap attempts to engineer quick-fixes will do: anything other than open, allowing willingness is an ego trip.

I need to differentiate here between my understanding of Willingness and Desire. The latter is a narrowing down, an emotional focussing of intent, a gradual exclusion of possible alternatives, a forge for emotion. Desire is a Preference on its way to becoming an Addiction. Desire leads to an act of Will, which is light years away from Willingness.

Willingness is a letting-go, a calming, an opening to possibilities, a creation of space for thought to manifest itself.

Wherever Desire is, there will your mind be also.

Wherever your Willingness is, there will your spirit be.

WHAT IS YOUR INTENTION?

What is your Intention for today? What do you want to have happen? What do you want to experience? What is your Intention in reading this article?
It is another Law of Life that your real intention always shows up. The corollary is also true – whatever you are experiencing now is the result of a desire you once had and felt into existence. If you don’t like what you’re experiencing right now, then maybe you forgot your Intention and got lost somewhere along the way. Some backtracking may be called for – or you could just drop the whole thing and work out what it is that you really want right now (and that may not be as easy as it sounds, depending on how right you want to be about what got you here/now) and simply be willing for it to show up. I suggest the latter.

In the meantime, there is no getting around the experience you are in right now; the only way out is through. It is at this point that devout Victims get stuck. They resist the flow and vigorously avow “This is NOT what I wanted!” Every available drop of energy and feeling goes into resisting what they don’t want. Resisting what you don’t want is a very different dynamic from creating space for what you DO want! You need to drop every scrap of resistance you have to it, because in order to resist an experience, you have to give your attention and energy to it, hold on to andf engage with it – albeit negatively. By resisting anything, you perpetuate it. (How many wars have we fought to end all war?)
Position creates Opposition. Resistance nails it firmly into place right under your nose. Try, instead, surrendering to it; i.e. engaging creatively with it. HAVE the experience. Any experience fully welcomed, held lightly and then let go of, disappears and you are left with --- space. Nothing. And Nothing is another name for unlimited possibility.

Whatever you are experiencing now is the result of a thought that you have willed, possibly unconsciously, into existence. Why would you do that?......... For the experience – part of which is the experience you are in right now. If you seem to be stuck in this experience, it is because you are resisting that experience. It is another Law of Life that whatever you resist – persists. There is an enormous difference in dynamics between being Willing for a particular experience, and Resisting its polar opposite. You get more of what you give your attention and energy to i.e. the exact opposite of what you want.

We FEEL our desires into existence. A thought pops, a familiar feeling automatically follows, usually very quickly (in microseconds). Electrical and chemical reactions spread the feeling to every cell in our body. We become the feeling. An aura develops around us and the message goes out, attracting people and events that we experience in a way that validates our exisitng thoughts, feelings, concepts beliefs and opinions about “the way life is”.

We all get to be right about our stuff. I’m sure you have heard, and maybe even used expressions like “This always happens to me”, or “That’s just the way life is, I guess”, or “Shit happens!”, or “All men/women are bastards” or “Life is just a bowl of cherries”…….. you know how it goes, and you’re right!! People and events are attracted to you that prove just how right you are! You get to be so right about your rackets that you’d rather be right than be happy!!

So what is it in particular that you are being right about?

Ask yourself this – “Am I a junkie for certain feelings -- anxiety, anger, frustration, jealousy, guilt, excitement, euphoria, release, etc. etc. etc……?” It’s easy to tell; cast your mind back to other incidents in your life that have generated the same feelings. If you can remember more than three, you are on an emotional addiction. But take heart; the first step in freeing yourself from an addiction is to tell the truth about it. And because the experience you’re reluctant to have is no more real than last night’s dreams, it will pass – as long as you are willing to say "Yes" to it, then when you're done, let go of it and let it be gone.

But in the meantime you’ve got these feelings and thoughts churning over wildly and repetitively. What can you do?

Re-member this – there is you, and there is your stuff. YOU ARE NOT YOUR STUFF. You are that which is unjudgmentally aware of your stuff -- the mindless observer. You are that which is left when all your stuff passes on. If you find you’ve allowed your self to get caught up in your stuff, and it’s bucking you around like a rodeo bull, remember you’re just the rider. Jump off. Let the bull (your stuff) do what it likes; just don’t jump back on board. (If you must, at least enjoy the ride!)


There once was a man who hated the sound of his own footsteps and the sight of his own shadow. He hit on a plan: he would run away from them. So he ran, and he ran, and he ran….but still his footsteps stayed there and his shadow followed him close behind. So he decided to run faster in order to get away from them. He ran faster, and faster, and faster…but still his footsteps were there and his shadow stuck by him. Day after day, week after week, year after year, he ran faster and faster, but still his footsteps and his shadow dogged him.

One day, exhausted, he dropped dead, which was a pity

Because all he had ever needed to do was –

Step into the shade

And sit down
Colin Hayes


Stop. Just stop. Drop it. Don’t move; don’t do anything. Just stop…………….

Drop being right about your suffering and just HAVE it, all of it. You created it, and the creator is always bigger than it’s creation. Have it so that you can have done with it and get on with your journey.

Victims do not want to hear this stuff. “You don’t understand – this is definitely NOT what I wanted!” they avow energetically, with voices raised in pitch. (A tirade is a complaint turned up loud). They emanate a palpable aura of “Victim over here.” Haven’t you noticed how some people seem to carry a permanently lit neon sign inviting misfortune? That includes those aggressive (in)dividuals who invest their considerable energy and feeling into resisting what they think they don’t want. By resisting and giving energy to what we don’t want, we bring it into existence. It happens by a kind of reverse attraction.

I have a very dear Aunt who has spent all her life resisting intimacy. It enabled her to get space from someone who was very tough on her, and it certainly got her central position any time she wanted it, because she could always blame someone else (in this case, her mother) for her condition. But now, in her rapidly declining months she is all alone, and wields it like a battle-axe to try and attract sympathy. Guess how effective that is! The law of reverse effect applies – very few people, other than those who are paid to do so, want to be near her: the safest course with a rampaging elephant is to give it plenty of space! She is only just beginning to realise that she is lonely because she organised it that way.

So do you: whatever your present condition, it is the result of choices and decisions you have made and feelings you have nourished. Sure, things just “happen” to you over which you have no control; unforseen and unwanted events “happen” to everybody. What you DO have control over is your response to them. Your response is yours, and no-one else can take it away from you -- we're not supposed to.
The problem is that we do not creatively respond to situations, we knee-jerk-react to them. Way back when we were tiny babies, we responded by complaining and protesting – withholding our wellbeing – and that response became hard-wired into an automatic reaction. Our reactions, in turn, created a condition that attracts people and situations that allow us to go on experiencing all the colours and levels of that condition. We become masterful at it, all the while complaining “This is not what I wanted!” How do you know that? How do you think you know that you are not willing the events in your life to happen? Perhaps, keeping you supplied with an unwanted condition is another (hidden) programme running in the back of your life that you are unaware of; something else you do not know that you don’t know, or have forgotten you put there.

My point is, no matter what your condition, you don’t have to put up with suffering about it any longer. The first step is to separate the two dynamics: on one hand there is the condition that’s bothering you, on the other is your suffering about it. The two are quite separate, except in your mind. Once you realise the separation, you can deal with the suffering quite independently of your circumstances. When suffering has ceased, the circumstances are transformed.

This is really very simple, but not always easy. After a lifetime of reinforcing your preconceptions about the way life is, willingness to let go of the habit – and that’s all it is – may, or may not come easily. Either way, don’t sweat it. For me, the shock of hitting bottom, not once but three times, was needed before I got how imprisoned I was. Along the way I was rudely shocked more than once how much like my father I had become. The bathroom mirror became a tool of enlightenment!

I don’t know whether this is so for everyone, but in my own experience, and from watching others do their trip, it seems that varying degrees of discomfort are on the menu. Hence the need to keep our avowed Intention and Willingness before us like a miner’s torch. Changing anything -- minds or underwear -- involves getting out of our comfort zones. Changing my mind raises a dissonance between its old compulsions and my determination to do life another way, and all minds hate discomfort. Changing my behaviours has occurred naturally, though, when I’ve checked in on my Intention (where I want to go) and been willing to brave the discomfort of allowing my old addictive thought and feeling patterns to be thwarted. The depths of grief and the heights of joy have opened up my heart. Uncomfortable? Oh yes. But I have learned to use any kind of discomfort, not as a block, but as an assurance that I’m headed out of my comfort zone and in the direction of Freedom.

How about you? Have you had enough of suffering?

OK. What is your Intention right now?

Speak it.

Are you ready?

Are you willing?

OK. So be it.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

THE POWER OF POSSIBILITY

My fairly recent awakening to the existence and availability of Infinite Possibility came just in the nick of time. After 60 years of living in a permanent state of anxiety and anger, I succumbed to the Black Death -- chronic fatigue and depression. I just didn't have the energy to resist it any longer.
I didn't care much whether I lived or died. I wasn't about to top myself; I was too tired to bother. I just didn't care about living any more. Nothing mattered.
Then something shifted, and I don't quite know how to put it into words, but here goes...........
You know those 3-D pictures that look like a flat, jumbled pattern of coloured squiggles? You stare at it and de-focus on the detail until there comes, of its own accord, a click-shift in your perception. Suddenly there is revealed a magical, three-dimensional world that you never knew existed. The picture as such has not changed, but your view of it is magically transformed in the blink of an eye.
My transformation felt similar. Not caring about what others thought and feeling that nothing mattered any more suddenly became a source of freedom, possibility, lightness, and even exhilaration! Without my having to do anything about it, my grip on life loosened. I surrendered to the "Is-ful Ah-ness" (Les Murray) of that moment. It happened without warning one afternoon as I was walking to the bus-stop on my way to work. I became sharply aware aware of the space in, around and through me being choc-full of Possibility. The sense of freedom that washed over and through me in that moment was en-lightening!
Nothing had changed, and I've never been the same since!
As I daily become more aware of the infinite possibilities that flow within and around me, I find myself using my own spirit, rather than other people, signs, omens, or random coincidences, as my guiding reference points. I rely less on the either the approval or disapproval of others in order to feel good about myself. I feel lighter; I fear less than I used to. And I've been able to give up the need to try and control the uncontrollable (which is just about everything). I've lost the need to feel special or important. I'm losing the need to hang onto being "safe" and "right". I'm beginning to discover the security of the unknown, the serenity of the silence that is ever-present, and the unlimited potential of nothing.
"I" used to sally forth, ever outwards, looking for More, looking for Better, looking for Different out there in the "real" world. The further I ventured out, the further away I got from that-which-I-am, and the harder I had to work to maintain the illusion of a personality. The further I wandered away from the source of power, the more energy I needed to beg, borrow or steal from others in order to keep going. In my quest for importance and immortality, I weighted myself down with acquisitions -- social position, important responsibility, ideas, beliefs and opinions, influence over others. The horse was riding the jockey, and the jockey was cripplingly exhausted.
There was never enough success or importance to fill the dead emptiness of a persona dis-connected from its source.
Nothing significant has changed since. I still have much the same persona (or is that "personum?); I'm still the same holy arsehole I've always been. But I'm seeing myself in another light -- in the light of Possibility. And that lightness is immensely attractive to surprising new possibilities. More of everything has come to me in the last 12 months, all without any conniving or manipulation games. But only since I began to live each day in Gratitude for what I am and what I have in this moment. That is transformation!
In an ocean of infinite possibilities, I am one possibility that showed up like a ripple on the surface. So did you. Even the tiniest ripple is still made of the same stuff as the ocean which gives rise to it. I Am that which I'd been looking for. I am not the ripple, but That which is permanent and remains after the ripple has washed up on the shore. I am that which is Aware of everything I previously thought I was. Unlimited possibility is inherent in that Awareness, from which has arisen everything that has ever been, is now, or ever will be.
From here/now anything is possible.
Now that's aliveness!

Sunday, January 15, 2006

POSSIBILITY OUR ESSENTIAL NATURE


We all showed up in, and are part of a field of Infinite Possibilities. No matter what we contemplate, no matter what we fix upon, something else is always there – available – waiting for us to notice. We live in a multi-dimensional spectrum of available experiences that are waiting for us to choose and say “Yes” to.

A "higher consciousness" is awareness of that field of All Possibilities – infinitely creative, free, unbounded, joyful and powerful. This is our intrinsic nature. It's the stuff we're made of.

You already know this; you once lived in that knowing: at the time you just weren’t aware that you knew it. Then one day someone who loved you very much started selling you on their idea of Limitation. They weren’t being nasty – a condition of limitation was their reality (sold on to them by their parents) and they wanted you to “know the score” so that you could grow up to be at least as happy and fulfilled as they were. Bit by bit you sold out on your possibility and defined a set of boundaries for yourself.

We all did it. We traded unlimited possibility for a more “realistic” condition of Limitation and Lack. Except for rare, fleeting moments of inspiring expansiveness generated perhaps by the presence of a magnificent sunset, the first cry of our firstborn child, an inspiring phrase of music, the touch of a beloved one……..we lost touch almost completely with the grandeur of Possibility -- our very nature.

Looking at it from a wider perspective, however, is it possible that this process was immensely creative?
It has been said that a fish doesn’t know water until it is out of it. It has also been said (by T.S. Eliot in “Little Gidding”) …….”and when we come to the end of our days we will arrive at the place where first we began, and know that place for the first time” Is it possible that there have been no mistakes?
Maybe we deliberately (as distinct from consciously) got lost in order to find who we truly are. Is it not a possibility that what we’re looking for is what we already are, waiting to be re-cognised? What we’ve been reaching for is out of reach – it is too close.

Possibility only needs a “Yes” for it to become accessible. Let go of the desire for it: desire separates you from it (you can only reap more desire from seeds of desire). Release any attachment to what you think the outcome should be. Let life itself take care of the details.

Isn’t it possible, though, that nothing is possible? Sure, if you believe that. Anything is possible, including nothing, if that's the way you want it. Possibility is happening in and around you right now whether you are aware of it or not. What’s separating you from what you say you want is desire, and barrage of filters and firewalls you’ve surrounded yourself with for “protection”.

How do you get out of your self-made prison? Say “Yes” to the possibility that your prison is an illusion, blinding you to the presence of what you thought you’d lost.

Possibility is where you left it -- waiting for you to come home.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

NOW HERE THIS
How much of what we perceive from moment to moment is actually in the moment?........ 10%? (very rare). 0.1%? --- almost universally. Except for a Boo!, an orgasm or a sneeze, we're not home.
So what happens to the here-and-now while we're not there? Nothing: it is always present, waiting for us to return from our wanderings around the dead past and the imagined future. The pity of it is, we rarely notice that we're not present and available where we are, we have gotten so used to flying on defaultpilot while we're off with the fairies and demons.
Leo and Enza Vita use a very good example of how far from the what-is we get. Have you ever stepped onto an escalator or moving footway that is not moving? Isn't it eerie? No matter how much you tell yourself "It's not moving", the eerie sensation of a moving escalator still imposes itself on your experience, and you walk like you're strapped into calipers. This is a small indication of how powerfully our memory and anticipation of "what ought to be" affects what actually IS. And we spend most of our lives off with the "oughts".
When "what-is" becomes more important than "what-ain't", suffering ceases. (Thanks Colin Hayes for that one)! Could it possibly be simpler than that?
HOW I GET BACK INTO THE NOW.....
I notice something. Anything -- it doesn't matter. The feel of the surface I'm walking on under my bare feet, the breeze on my face, the actual sounds going on around me, the noise in my head........ In that moment of noticing, I'm not thinking about it (thinking about something is ALWAYS in the dead past).
"What's wrong with right now, unless you think about it"
Sailor Bob Adamson
My favourite is to notice what's going on in that great Cineramic expanse of my peripheral vision -- that vastness I never see while I'm focussed in on something. The habit of noticing the peripheral without neccessarily turning to look at it broadens my outlook, prevents accidents, awakens intuition and opens up a whole world of possibilities, waiting in the wings for me to notice them.
Here-now is not lost. It's where you left it, waiting for you to return to the only place where everything you want is possible.