UNDERSTANDING

An orgasm is on offer --
Would you rather understand it, or HAVE it?

Understanding truly is the booby-prize.

Understanding is an attempt by the Mind to get a fence around the boundless,
To control the uncontrollable.

The illusion is that Understanding affords Security.


Life was never, ever designed to be to be understood;
It is meant to be lived! 
The search for understanding is OK as a pastime;
It rates somewhere about the same level as crosswords and Trivial Pursuit
I know one or two people who understand everything;
They are true arseholes,
And they know nothing.

Understanding is a blunt scalpel that kills the experience,
Like the botanist who dissects the flower --
It's structure is comprehended,
Knowledge has been extracted
(At the expense of Knowing.)
Now its beauty is butchered  and its perfume has evaporated --
The flower is dead.

To know a flower
Be first the poet who loves the flower,
Then be the awareness that becomes the flower.
This is how God creates and knows all things --
She becomes them.

To truly know any experience,
Set your mind to watch from the sidelines;
Then immerse yourself into the experience, and
Be-come it:
Allow that to happen

TRANSFORMING & THE SOURCE OF SUFFERING

Fear and dis-ease arise when we try to set or hold on to parts of our identity in the face of the winds of change.

We think of "me" as a fixed entity. It isn't. Like everything else around, "I" and "Me" are a process, within the larger process of life and living. It is the forgetting of the process, the resistance to its ebb and flow, and the illusion of a constant me-ness that causes pain, surprise and confusion.

When fear and doubt arise, it's a signal that there may be some fixating to let go of, so that re-balancing can take place.

This re-balancing is automatic; all of creation is in a continuous process of adjusting and re-adjusting. We do not need to concern ourselves with it, any more than we need to think about how to digest our food: it is taken care of.

"How" is an interference of the rational mind. Embracing transformation is not like learning algebra; it could be likened more with learning to walk or ride a bicycle, and discovering Balance.

Does your mind still demand to know how? OK, try this.......

HOW  =  WHAT + WHY

You know WHAT you want -- transformation into a state of Unconditional Love

You know WHY you want it -- (fill this in for yourself)

Now ACT. Do what is there to be done; let your focus be on that, and let the "how" of it take care of itself.

Let go of time, too. Creation and Evolution have never been in any great hurry.

Let your daily experiences be the answers to all your questions.

You are living the answer --

Feel into your now-by-now experience.

You see, transformation cannot be understood; there is no pigeon-hole in the mind that it will fit  into. 

Tell me, would you rather understand an  orgasm, or have one?

Understanding is the booby-prize.

If you insist on understanding either an orgasm or transformation, you will never have either.

Got it?

The communication of transformation is telepathic, not lingual. Transformation is radiated and infused, and picked up by a sensory mechanism beyond our ordinary five senses. The evidence of its passing-through can be seen, heard and felt a little while later.

In the meantime --

Be still and know the movement of I Am.

MORE ON UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

The warning bells go off when I read about "Unconditional Love" as a must-have. That, right there, is a condition --

(My unconditional love is conditional: I can't be with anybody who puts conditions on me.)

And it is likely to attract yet another conditional suitor --
Someone who says "Yeah, I'll have some of that unconditional love, too, thanks very much"

Unconditional Love, by definition, allows conditional love to be.
If there is anything -- anything -- that unconditional love cannot allow
Then it is no longer "unconditional".
Unconditional love ALLOWS.


(Right there is the answer to the question "How can God let this happen?" God ALLOWS. Thank God she allows, otherwise I wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell. Ah, but you want God to allow this, but not that? That doesn't sound like God to me; that sounds like somebody's ego. God allows ALL. She can afford to because she IS All.)

Are you still so sure that Unconditional Love is what you're looking for?
How grand is your allowing?

I don't see Unconditional love as static. I see it as a moment-to-moment journey, a process that involves making mistakes and taking risks. It also involves giving up my attachments to excess baggage, like my most cherished old ways of feeling -- anger, resentment, jealousy (haven't felt that on in a while, thank god!), grief, hurt, embarrassment, righteousness, disappointment, self-pity, self-importance, rage, and winning --- to make room for some new experiences. Fortunately the payoff for allowing these bags of ballast to drop off the trolley is a closer connection with harmony, balance and the power of finer energies. Going back to the limitations of the old ways becomes less and less attractive. Occasionally I get flashes of re-cognition of how things used to be for me. It feels  a bit like looking through an old photo album -- quaintly interesting, but irrelevant now.

We were all born out of the womb; to physically return is impossible. There just isn't room back there any more! And there really wasn't anything back there then that is worth cranking your head over now.

Moving right along..............

Unconditional Love is no better or worse than any experience, conditional or otherwise, that we have had before. If it were so, then that would be a judgment, a comparison, and therefore no longer unconditional.

Love is not better than anything. Nor is it better than anything else because there is no "outside" of love to be "else". Love embraces every experience unconditionally (including the experience of not-embracing). Once we experience that kind of allowing and appreciating, it makes looking at your old ideas of what love was (like in any soap opera) rather like watching those jerky old movies of flying machine experiments that never quite got off the ground long enough to fly more than a few metres. Quaint, crude and, frankly, a bit of a joke.

How will you know Unconditional Love when you experience it? 

Well, for one thing, your mind will stop saying "This ain't it."
And for another thing, your mind will stop saying "This is it."

In fact, your mind will be absent,

Because wherever anything unconditional is

Mind, and anything else it considers itself to be,

Cannot be there.

Mind is a Condition that is conditional and conditioning.

Love is like --

A daily commitment to celebrate

And permission to go deeper, higher, wider and beyond...........

Beyond even this limited perception.

BE ALONE

Inspired by the words of Baghwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho)

Alone is what we are --
And there is a knack to it.
Learn the art of being alone.

Unless you learn the art of being alone

You will never stand alone;

You will never be individual.

Being individual is a "valuable phenomenon",

But is not encouraged.

Governments, religions and families are against the individual.

The "black sheep" is a threat to their dominance --

Being individual is the greatest privilege, 

and the greatest challenge.

Until you can be individual and alone with your self,

You will never truly be

With anyone else......

You crave relationship? Why?

Because you cannot be comfortably and completely alone?

That is the worst of all possible reasons.

To be in a successful relationship,

Aim to be alone -- together

It is a paradox -- 

Only when you are content to be al-one,

Are you ready for real-ationship.

 It has been said many times,

We came alone; we will depart alone.

Even our most intimate lover cannot come with us when we go inside.

Adventuring inwards, we go alone.

Always.

Our hurts, our joys

Are absolutely private.

LOVE

Love delights in objects outside of us,
But does not require them in order to be.
Love delights in someone noticing it,
But does not require recognition.
Love does not require the world to respond in any particular way,
But delights in response anyway.

Love is a lightness,
A way of seeing and being
That blossoms for its own sake.
Love is the bird that sings in the bush,
Even when there is no-one to hear.

Love
Like all things natural
Is divinely indifferent.
There is no "special" love for some "special" person or thing;
There is no precondition for it to exist.
There is Love,
That allows us to create an illusion of "Not-love" if we wish --
Love is All.

Love cannot be earned;
It is a Given of Life,
Given evenly and freely to all that is, without consideration or favour --
To the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.
Love is intrinsic in Being --
Unconditionally.


Mind cannot understand such love;
Love cannot be contained
in something so small.

Unconditional Love
Is not a static state;
It is a continuous process
Of letting go
Of anything and everything
That restricts our ability
To totally embrace the fullness of Now.
Unconditional Love
Allows.
It is
A state of awareness, without judgment,
A state of embracing, without reserve,
A state of allowing, without limit,
A deep appreciation for every experience.

And it is the opposite of all that.
All-so.

NO FORMULA

Our logical mind wants formulas for being
So that it can feel safe and secure.

Life presents us with mysteries, paradoxes and contradictions
that invite each of us
to go much deeper into experience than mere mind.

We are called to risk chaos
in order to discover the cosmic harmony of all Creation
and our part in it.

How will you get through the threat to the mind of dis-solution?

There is a leap to be made
With no way of imagining where you are going
And with no hope of ever scrambling back
To Mind.
This is so hard, because you have no recollection of a time without Mind.
Mind has easily fooled you that This is all that there is.

There is more, though.
You know it. You don't know how you know it,
Or what it is that you know.
You just --- know.......
Mind cannot recall it for you, because it was not there when you knew it before.
The "more" you long for
Is found in no-mind.

Evolution has always gone with the curious, the bold, the adventurous, the cheeky, the takers of risk....
Of course you are afraid.
That's why we were given the gift of Courage.
You do have to follow the urge,
Dare
Trust....
Not me, Not God,
But the river of life, and your self in the flow of it,
Without the reassurance of any prior proof
That there is an ocean.


Lifetime after lifetime
You have struggled to this point,
Only to lose your nerve --

Will it be this time?
If it isn't -- no problem;
You can go 'round again, and again, in a spiritual holding pattern.....
Until you're ready.

ANOTHER BLINDING FLASH OF THE BLOODY OBVIOUS

We all have a pretty good idea of what our most obvious negative emotions are. Mine, for example, are Anger and Frustration. But are they our Dominating negative influences? Are our obvious demons just a cover for a hidden reality that is far more powerful in its insidious influence against our well-being?

What feelings are we avoiding? In my case, by feeling frustrated and angry, am I trying to avoid feeling something far more painful?

Ever since the day I was being born (and possibly before) I have automatically used Frustration and Anger as ways of greeting the challenges of life. Life, for its part, has very kindly given me an open invitation to deal with it, and has seen to it that I'm rarely left wanting for provocation. 

My fall from bliss started, as far as I know, with an inexperienced obstetrician who panicked when I charged face-first down the birth canal at high speed. He grabbed my head with a pair of forceps and, despite the protestations of my mother, pushed me back into the very space I was hell-bent on getting out of He then wrenched my head forward and dragged me out again, unable to see where I was going and gasping for breath. I picked up on his panic, my mother's anxiety and felt breathless, frustrated and angry. And I survived. So my mind put it together -- "If I feel threatened, all I have to do is churn out Panic, Anxiety, Breathlessness, Frustration and Anger and I will survive." 

That's how our minds work.

Then Life gave me a father who, despite the fact that he'd never done it before, faked certainty about knowing exactly what was good for young children and how to get it from them -- severe restriction, fear, and the certainty of painful punishment for our sins. It's not his fault -- that's what his parents did to him, and he knew of no other alternatives. The point is, I chose (unconsciously) to respond to him, however he was, with panic, anxiety, breathlessness, frustration and anger. That upset him and made him angrier. Our future relationship was set in granite.

But only one of us was allowed to overtly express Frustration and Anger,  and it wasn't going to be me.  So I learnt to sit on them and  rely on my gentleness and niceness to get me by. I suppressed my natural rebellion against restriction (aka. my urge for Freedom)  by turning it inwards onto my self, with very good reason -- my physical survival. My giant of a father who jammed the scales at their maximum of 26 stone,  had absolutely no tolerance for opposition from anyone on the planet, especially his firstborn, and a vile bent for physical violence with which to vent HIS frustration. I learnt very quickly to keep myself hidden.

It didn't work, of course. The more we try to suppress anything , the more it will pop up in one form or another somewhere else, like a waterbed. In my case, the "popping up" took two forms. The first was in covert rebellion. Despite my watchfulness, a part of me -- the bit my mother called "the very divil in you" -- periodically forced me to do sneaky stuff that broke the strict rules. My father always found out, of course, (he and God both had spies everywhere), and I got a right belting and kicking for it every time. The second form of breakout came in a permanent case of the shakes, nightmares, and a propensity to throw up whenever stressed. Untreated, this turned over the decades into full-blown chronic anxiety, panic attacks, depression, overweightness, diabetes and coronary heart disease.

I've been aware of this for the last 20-odd years, and my accelerated inner growth in that time  has helped me to have my anger and frustration without needing to inflict it upon others. But my efforts to transmute (ie. complete with and transform) frustration and anger have met with only mild, incremental success.

I think I've found out why........

THE BLOODY OBVIOUS

All of the above has been by way of preamble. I thought if I told my story, then someone out there may learn from it and avoid the effects and consequences of my ignorance that I must now take care of (viz. open-heart surgery -- the body/mind does have a sense of humour!)

We all have, as part of the Self that we construct, a set of  internal organising principles that determine how we go about doing our lives. One of mine goes like this --

Because I feel Grief and Hurt,

I alienate others

in order to get Validation and Honour

Now, how we arrive at our particular fundamental operating principles is not up for discussion here -- that is something you and I would have to do together, one on one.. The reason I mention it here is that, having made this discovery 20 years ago, I forgot about Grief and Hurt.

In a blinding "A-Hah!" moment of remembrance earlier today, a question popped -- Am I using Frustration and Anger  (whipped up by my Mind) to avoid experiencing the greater pain of Grief and Hurt (felt in my Heart)?

Something immediately shifted deep inside. That's a feeling I've learned to trust. Maybe I've been working on my mind when it's the heart that's faulty!? 

I can certainly feel that there is Grief and Hurt behind my anger.  And I can see, too, that anger and frustration are only bringing me more grief and hurt. Perhaps if I feel into the Hurt and  Grief, the Anger etc. will resolve themselves.

This might be interesting!

By feeling what you're feeling, what other feelings do you get to avoid?

INTEGRITY, AND BEING RE-BORN

Our emotional stances --

Joy, sadness, fear, calmness, anger, equanimity, hate .................

Are just low-frequency manifestations of our potential for Love.

They're not "wrong", they're just on one end of a see-saw where both players are sitting side-by-side. One of you has to venture up to the other end. Then you can have fun!

Each of us has two dominating negative emotions that we avoid  (mine are Grief and Hurt).

Avoid no longer;

Your dominant, dominating negative emotions  are the way through that you have been seeking all this while.

Come through.

When they come up next time, meet them. Breathe into them, breathe them into you. Welcome them home. Integrate them in to You; Integrate your Self into them.

You created them; bring your children back home.

While this is happening, your mind may think that you are being destroyed.

Not so.

Something is dying alright --- what's dis-appearing is the Not-You, the False-Self that you put up front after you banished the bits of yourself that you thought, mistakenly, that you could do better without. When you did that, you lost something very precious -- your Integrity.

INTEGRITY

Integrity is often confused with "honesty". They are related, but not the same. In much the same way as all elms are trees, but not all trees are elms -- honesty is part of integrity, but Integrity is much more than just honesty. Integrity is all of it (including dis-honesty). When a system, process or person has Integrity, nothing is missing. Everything possible is there, integrated and balanced. Any thing without integrity becomes un-balanced (something missing), unstable and teeters unpredictably.

We yearn for Integrity, but discard and reject the stuff we judge as "not-what-I-want-to-be". Every rejection, every resistance, throws us further out of balance and out of Integrity.

I know this is not what your mind wants to hear. And you are free to reject it. But next time you feel your life getting out of kilter, look at what you're saying "No" to, including the "no" to the feeling of being out of kilter.

For those of you who are so divinely pissed-off with lurching through life like a drunk on steroids, here is a gateway to a new life --------

Accept your stuff. Breathe into it. Integrate it back into the Not-You that you've always thought that you were. Open up the not-being part of your Be-ing to welcome everything that comes to the door of your awareness. Take notice. Ignite everything with the fire of your loving attention.

Your life will begin anew,

Blossoming forth with the Love That You Are

In to the Love of All That Is.

LOVE IS....................

Love is.........

whatever you add after the dotted line.

Something to do,

Something to have,

An IS-ness to be in.

When we get the Is-ness of Love

We get the Gift.

There is nothing undone to be done, nothing not-available to be acquired.

We have it all.

PAIN

The greater Energy of all life and living
Flows through the whole of creation
Unimpeded,
Until
It is constricted by resistive ligatures of thought and feeling -- the old, habitual ways of fulfilling ourselves.

(I resist; therefore I exist.)

The constrictions they cause are too tiny for the Energy flow;

At the point of contraction we experience Pain and Dis-ease.

Mind rushes around concocting strategies,  potions and disciplines
designed to avoid, salve and anaesthetise,

When all that is needed is to let-go.

Allow

Surrender

Relax

Release.

Breathe through the pain to the Energy,

And connect with that which is.


Whenever I do this, I experience the thought and the feeling loosening,
I feel the energy flow as the movement of some larger reality that I cannot even guess at
Surging through me and supporting me
In a heightened and deepened awareness.
I am the conduit
Completing a circuit.

My heart is quivering, but not from fear;

I am shaken from my foundations, but not out of panic;

My mind freezes: but not in depression;

And I know -- somewhere inside of all this --

Everything is OK

And I am alright.

COMPETE OR CREATE

There are two ways to have the tallest building in town:--

1. Build the tallest building in town
2. Tear down anything that's taller than you.

Both ways are effective.

But with option #.2., people quickly get wise to you and see you coming with your big lead wrecker's balls.

With option #.1., there will be people who may want to help you, and maybe rent some space in the finished building.

Ruthless Rule of Reality -- Where you come from is where you're going to.

People who Compete come from a reality of Scarcity and Lack. So they'll end up in............?

People who Create know there's Enough for all. So they'll end up in......?

I know who I prefer to be with.

LOOKING FOR MEANING?

What , for you, is the meaning of life?
What is your purpose?
Why are you here?

It's a question that comes up a lot in counseling, for a very good reason. Humans need a strong sense of meaning, if for no other reasons than it grounds us, gives us a pretext for being here, and some idea of what to do while we're waiting for Godot. If we lose touch with Meaning for long enough, we  can become  unhinged, and can actually become quite ill.

Meaning is required by the Mind: it demands meaning for itself. Heart and spirit couldn't care less -- they really couldn't. So the perception of a "lack of meaning" is coming from your mind, and so is all the ensuing carry-on. This does not demean or diminish its importance in any way, but I say this now just so that we can be clear about where the Need for Meaning comes from. How we experience that addiction to meaning gives us an insight into how our mind works, and how it goes about getting its way with us.

So, what - for you - is the meaning of life? Write down now a list of things that occur to you. This is important. Please don't read on until you have got at least 5 things down on paper. Scan all the areas of your life -- relationships, money, career, recreation, spirituality, health -- What is the meaning of your experience in each of these life areas? If you haven't got at least 5 things down, you're wasting your time: hit the "Exit" button and do something else.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

You're back? Good. Look at your list now. Of all that you have  written there, which  meanings are inherited from your family, your religion or spirituality, and your culture? Don't get defensive about it -- those influences don't in any way invalidate the things that are important to you. We're just getting a handle, firstly, on which of your values are there by default, and which have been created by you, for you, in the light of experiences that have forced you to question and validate your inherited values.

OK. This list is not hard and fast. As we proceed with this game, feel free to add to and alter your list in any way.

Look at your list again now. Look at each Meaning in turn. Ask yourself "Is this Meaning what I think my life IS about, or is it what I think my life SHOULD be about, or WOULD be about if things were going better for me?" If you come across any meanings that fall into the "Should-be" or "Would-be" categories, don't delete them, but add to each one the Meaning that actually is so for you right now. Be honest. You may strike some reluctance here, because you ego wants to look good -- to itself and to you. Your ego is not going to voluntarily give you what you need to know here. Feel into the question rather than think about it. What is actually going on in your space? If you're experiencing - say - anxiety, then that should be on your list: anxiety (if you have it) is part of what your life means to you -- at this moment. Put it on your list.

The beginning of any journey means starting from where you are, not from where you think you'd rather be or where you think you ought to be. And if you have got this far into this blog, you are about to go on a journey. Don't worry, you have all that you will need for the trip.

To give you some help here, I'm going to list from my work with callers, some of the more popular negative meaning-realities experienced by people who feel their lives are less than they could be. Stay with me on this; we'll get to the positive balance shortly. For now, just pick any that you find relevant to your present condition and add them to your list................ if you're feeling any of the below, either within yourself of from other people who show up in your face, they are part of what life means for you at the moment...............

MEANINGS AROUND SECURITY

Fear, worry, anxiety, guilt, terror, lostness, nervousness, horror, disappointment, hurt, grief, apprehension, jealousy, emptiness, confusion, sadness, embarrassment, humiliation, trapped-ness, inadequacy, torment.

MEANINGS AROUND SENSATION

Frustration, disappointment, boredom, disgust, jealousy, stupidity, envy.

MEANINGS AROUND POWER

Anger, resentment, annoyance, hatred, irritation, frustration, rage, disgust, fury, hostility, indignation, jealousy, impatience.

MEANINGS WE'RE SEARCHING FOR

Understanding, approval, attention, honour, forgiveness, direction, glory, help, belief, acknowledgment, recognition, friendship, devotion, validation, agreement, respect, encouragement, superiority, support, feeling wanted, trust, Dad's love, Mum's love, kids' love, appreciation, admiration.

These are just some of the places that we go to, looking for Meaning. But what ARE we looking for?

Go through your list now (getting long, isn't it?), and find the positive or negative opposite of each Meaning on your list. Write them down, too, side by side. 

Now prepare for a damn good laugh!

Let's say one of your meanings is "anger" and the opposite of that, for you, is "equanimity". Say to yourself now "I choose to experience anger in order to find equanimity". Go through the rest of both lists now, and you'll begin to see -- 1) how we get tied up six ways from Sunday in conflicting meanings;  2) how we hold meanings that don't work in our best interests;  and  3) why we get a bumpy ride. We got into this bind of diminishing returns because we had no choice but to adopt many of the Life-Meanings that pre-existed us -- the ones we showed up into. That's OK.  This is how we grow. We first experience what DOESN'T work, so that we can  come to a point of crisis, then make some different, conscious choices and begin to create a life full of meanings that work for us. This process of finding out what doesn't work before we can know what does work is a roller-coaster ride we all go through. It's the name and nature of the game called Being Human. Welcome to The Club!

OK. Now this next bit is for the truly adventurous. This is a bungee-jump!

How much do you want to be free?

How much are you willing to give up to get freedom?

Are you still with me? Good. Stand in this possibility for at least 21 days, not because it is "right", or "wrong", or "The Truth", but simply because it is somewhere you may never have stood before, and there is a view to be seen from here that may well knock your socks off!

Ready? Hold my hand. I've been here before, and I'm still alive to tell the tale. I'll bring you safely back....................

LIFE HAS NO MEANING

AND IT DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING THAT IT HAS NO MEANING

LIFE IS MEANING-LESS

AND IT DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING THAT IT'S MEANINGLESS

Life has no meaning, and human beings need meaning...... What do we do?

Make it up. Life has no meaning, but it offers to humans a smorgasbord of  possible "pretend" meanings. Pick what you want. Better still -- make up your own. 

Whatever you do, though, pick or make up pretend-meanings that are more likely to work FOR you. Haven't you had enough of clinging on to meanings that work against your well-being?

Most folk stick with umpteenth-hand, socially sanctioned meanings they picked up from others off the streets, meanings that contract and limit their possibilities.

You might like to consider this -- it works for me......   

That the meaning of life is Life itself. The meaning of my experience is the Experience itself.

It's what I came here for.

Everything else is just waffle. 

That's just my stuff, but if it works for you, too, help yourself. You're welcome.

Your mind needs meanings, 

and you do need a mind. 

Give it what it  needs, 

but choose meanings that appeal to your intrinsic urge for Expansion and Freedom. Those are human needs. If and while your meanings work, keep them around for your mind's reassurance; when one ceases to work, ditch it and find some others to test-drive.

Now, that is Freedom!

EXPRESSING = SUPPRESSING

We assume that a person who is expressing his/her feelings is intimately in touch with them. I'd like to seriously call that assumption into question.

Language is a function of the mind, and the mind is not a "feeling" device. Mind "thinks". So language cannot "feel", it can only talk -- about the thinking that Mind is doing about feeling. Thinking about a feeling is not feeling the feeling. No more than eating a restaurant menu, or its press reviews, tastes like eating the meal.

Pure feeling and awareness have been available to us long before we were born. We can "remember" in-the-womb experiences through dreams, meditations or under hypnosis, but we cannot recall them verbally or describe them because we didn't have the language at the time with which to tag them, so they are beyond the reach of the conscious mind. A Languaging function was developed after birth, and inserted somewhere after the perception of a thought or feeling, so that our we can give a verbal expression of that experience and file it away for easy access -- by the Mind. Along with our ability to communicate with others through language, we also developed the same ability to talk to ourselves. The vocabulary and the grammar were, and remain essentially the same. The level of sophistication and authenticity we show when we talk socially is the same level as our self-talk, and vice versa.

While we are languaging, we are in mind. We may be talking out of a feeling, we may be talking about a feeling, but we are not having the feeling, not while our lips are moving. When a genuine feeling wells up that either we want to have, or that overwhelms us -- we stop talking, hadn't you noticed? Languaging can take us to threshold of that place, and can help us take others to a similar threshold in their experience. But in order to allow the experience to be felt, we have to --

shut up.

When someone is mouthing off angrily, they are expressing their feelings, of anger but they are not HAVING them. No transmutation of the feeling can take place. Nothing is going to change. That feeling will come up again and again and again, and that person will keep on mouthing off, ramping up the rhetoric and the volume in a vain attempt to get rid of it. Little does he/she realise  that, with every replay, the feeling is being driven deeper and deeper into the wound. If you want to have done with a recurrent feeling that is doing you damage --

give yourself space,

SHUT UP

and

HAVE THE FEELING

Don't be embarrassed. If there's someone with you, ask them to wait while you Have it. Most people will be glad to give you the space, rather than have you dump your feelings onto them.

If we feel into them, words like "Love", "Peace" and "Energy" can help us access the states of being that they symbolise. Without taking a moment to feel into them, however, those same words will suppress and form a resistance  to the experience. And this "feeling into" is not something that can be faked. It  has to be a genuine, willing enquiry to access and explore the experience.

Choose a word for the context or condition you find yourself in right at this moment. Say the word to your self. Meditate into its essence -- let yourself go into what experience the word symbolises.  If images or memories come up, be with them until they leave of their own accord. Let the word lie there in the light of your question -- "What does it feel like, and what do I need to learn in order to experience ...............?" 

Give yourself the space to experience (without language) whatever comes up as you stand in  your question. If language intervenes, don't resist that -- feel into those words for the experience. Whatever comes up will be exactly what you need.

Allow the words to grow in depth and significance

Day by day.

As you progress, your words will gather real meaning 

and the authority of real experience.

THE GATEWAY OF VULNERABILITY

One magical night in Africa I witnessed a firelight festival of dances from the various tribes that traditionally inhabited the area now known as Zimbabwe. Every dance had its own rhythm, its own theme, its own story, its own origins, its own costumes, and its own music. For the finale, all the groups came together and, in turn began again, improvising on their signature dances. At first, to my Western ears, the seemingly conflicting tempos, rhythms and tunes appeared to be descending toward chaos. Then a magical pattern began to emerge, in which every individual song and dance took its place, weaving and interweaving together a spectacular tapestry of colour, light and sound.  After half a lifetime in inspirational music, this was music as I had never experienced before. I still get goosebumps when I recall it.

I learned something that night. The best way I can describe that is - that Simple Harmony  comes from energies that sing on the same scale -- the same key-signature. Rich Harmonies come from the melding of all signature energies. No matter how discordant some of them may seem to be at first to the untrained ear, there is an organising influence, a cosmic conductor, that will fold every new sound into an ever-enriching symphony.

The process I witnessed that night in Zimbabwe was wonderfully re-created in The Homeland Suite, a sequence in the movie "The Power of One", when the young hero created a concert that combined and celebrated the songs of all the different tribes represented in the prison where his friend was incarcerated. 

It's not until we enter chaos as a deliberate act that we discover the subtle patterns that become available when we say "Yes" to the whole of experience. Without any compromise, everything finds its place, everything fits in, and what emerges is the self-organising principle of the whole of creation.

But we miss that experience because we baulk at what we call "anarchy.". Even if catastrophic circumstances  force us into chaos, we're too panicked to gain anything from the encounter. The human mind is terrified of apparent chaos. Like someone who's been tossed into a pond full of crocodiles , our feet don't touch the bottom -- they hardly skim the surface in our mad scramble to get the hell out.. That's a pity, because it prevents many of us from ever experiencing anything grander than the moth-eaten scraps that will actually fit through the censoring  screens of tiny mind.

There is a way through, though. There's a way to get out of your mind. And, unless you want to, it doesn't involve chanting "Om" or even "Three Blind Mice" for hours on end.......

The first step is to get that your mind is something that you have; but it is not what you are. I've just reached into my pocket and pulled out a bunch of keys, a bus ticket, and a handkerchief. All three things are handy for enabling me to have a range of possible experiences; but they are not Who I Am. I Am that which has them and carries them around so that I can use them. But they do not define what I am, and I can put them down or pick them up at will. So it is with our mind. We have it to use, but it is not who we are.

The second step is for you, the CEO of Your Life Inc., to come back from the world's longest lunch-hour, make an executive decision to take back the reins of your life, bust you mind back to its office as Head of the IT Department, and call in your Heart to find out what's been going on for him/her in your absence. Then bring everyone together (including your mind).and get some fullness and balance back in your life.

To embrace your Greater Self, however, you MUST go through Vulnerability. Now, I didn't make this rule up. It's just the way it seems to be for everybody -- even Jesus the Christ had to go through this portal., and he told his followers about it, too. We all have to take a deep breath and open ourself  up to everything our mind has formerly said "No" to. 

Say "Yes" and feel into the flows of thought and feeling. Some of them may seem quite irrational, wrong, stupid, even downright dangerous to your emotional  ease. At first you may experience tremendous discomfort. That is indeed a good sign; it means you are getting out of your "comfort zone". Nothing new or transformational was ever found in the Comfort Zone. Look back at your own life experience -- did you ever learn anything much when things were going well for you? Were your greatest spurs to growth easy times, or tough times?

This is the greatest challenge to counseling. Most callers come to you because they are 'way out of their Comfort Zone and, like a person drowning, they are fixated on scrambling back by any means possible, even if it means drowning you in the process. Our challenge is to engineer a shift of perception for them, a shift that will allow them to see the possibility that the Comfort Zone has a lid on it, and as the emotional tide continues to rise, they will surely drown in their own Comfort. Chaos and Uncertainty are signs of hope.

Beset as we are by seeming disharmony outside of the familiar rap-thunk of the comfort-able, we hiccup.  We hesitate long and hard. 

Leap in. You have to jump in. Just as you cannot learn to swim by standing on the beach, you have to wade  into Life if you're ever going to learn how to Live it. Be willing to get out of your depth. You're not going to drown! 

YOU - CAN - SWIM.

Honour the urge to Leap in. That urge to get out of your depth is your Destiny calling you!! It's as old and true as Creation itself. It is our evolution calling. The false mind that keeps us back, stuttering all over with fear, does not know -- has no idea whatever -- of why we came here. The mind is concerned with one thing, and one thing only -- its own supremacy. And where you and I are called to go, our minds  are going to be as supreme as a minnow in an ocean full of whale-sharks. Our tiny minds will dis-solve into the ThoughtForce of  All -That-Is that awaits us there.

As we surrender the need to control and protect our egos, as we submit to Vulner-ability, as we release into the intrinsic harmony of all energies, we find empowerment, vitality, and tremendous peace.

And then ......... life goes on.

THE PRICE OF WISDOM

The price of Happiness is Suffering

 The price of Peace is Challenge

The price of Wisdom is Not-Knowing

There's no free lunch

The trick is not to get upset about it.

FINE-TUNING AWARENESS

Whenever energy signals are transmitted (eg. TV), there are actually two sets of energies working together. One is the set of signals that translate into what we see and hear; the second is a "carrier wave", a signal that carries the first set through the ether to its destinations.

I have a hunch that something similar is happening further up the frequency scale, in the arena of thoughts and feelings.Underlying what we think and feel at the level of ego, I'm aware of something else going on . Flowing through the coarser elements of emotions, thoughts, ideas and events, there is a finer energy that is of immense help in accessing deeper levels of inner and outer space. I choose to call this finer energy Pure Awareness. I get the feeling that this Pure Awareness is close to what underpins and energises the whole of life.

See if you can sense it. While you find yourself emoting and intellect-ing, try "sensing into" the heavier elements of what's going on in your experience, "feeling into" the languaging. Open up and respond to the finer energy that coincides with it . Open yourself up to resonate with it.

It is this finer energy within Self that connects and engages our inner spirit with the outer, coarser experience, and makes it OK. This is the connection that dissolves the separation between "subject" and "object". This finer carrier-energy is the common link, unifying  the universe within to the outer universe that we formerly thought of as separate and objective. Once we "sense" into it, we find there is no separation between inner and outer; they aren't even two sides of the one coin, they are one singular expression of a governing ThoughtForce that embraces everything and rejects nothing. This ThoughtForce is the "I" that has no "Not-I"; the "Me" that has no "Not-Me"".

Direct, uncensored experience of whatever is signified by words like "life", "love" "energy", and "God" evokes a full-bodied feeling that engages every level of our Self. If what you're feeling isn't all-pervasive, if it doesn't blow your tiny mind and magnificent heart wide open, if there's the slightest hint of hold-back or contraction, then it ain't Love. It is a limited form of life and energy, and a narrowed-down experience of god-ness, but it ain't capital "L" Love.

When we hone our awareness and fine-tune it to All Awareness, life reality becomes a dance of energies from one end of the spectrum to the other, and beyond. Through these energies we are connected --
To all experience
And to each other.
All of it is available to us,
And everything we experience adds to it.

When energies sweep through us (as they are wont to do)
And we drop any temptation to resist that ebb and flow,
When we take our awareness into them, without judging them as either good or bad,
Heavier perceptions of being a victim of their effect on us begin to evaporate.
The more practice we give ourselves of diving naked into experience,
The more we become both the Lover and the Beloved of Life.

BEYOND LOGIC AND OUT OF CONTROL

In response to the challenges and contradictions of life,
we go looking for Certainty and Control.

We reject anything that appears to be irrational and unreasonable.

The ploy is understandable, but far too limited to support life for the long haul.

Life is -- and offers --  more than just being Secure and Reasonable........

Much more.......

Life holds the chance to discover

The Security of Insecurity, and

The Reasonableness of Irrationality

Logic and Control are both possible and valid 

BUT

Only inside Conditions that are themselves carefully defined and reasonably controlled,

Which narrows the field down quite a bit!

Outside of that, at times when all hell breaks loose, or you have teenagers --

Definition and control go out the window

And Logic and Reason are as much  use as an ashtray on a motorbike.

Awakening, possibility, transformation and growth do not fall into line in the familiar parade-grounds of Logic and Reasonableness;

They dance in the boundless realm of possibility, in the certainty of not-knowing, in the innocence ("I-know-sense") of nonsense,

Where boundaries and definition evaporate

And Uncertainty and Insecurity reign supreme.

Evolution is more than a single, linear development of incremental changes;

It is also a bewildering dot-dash maze of quantum sideways leaps.

Doesn't the logical human mind hate it when that happens!!??

It demands, from the unexplainable, an explanation that it can then argue with

Don't fret. your spirit understands,

And has been waiting patiently for you you get bored of playing in the fenced-off quadrangle of your mind

And come, instead, for a run in the meadows.

Where your heart and spirit reign --  boundary-less.

A NEW ENERGY

"Energy" has another  dimension, in addition to the old Newtonian perception.

When I was at school, my physics teachers talked about an unseen force which is measurable in the effects it produces. We discussed measurable things like the amount of energy required, generated and used to lift a 1 kg brick.

When I moved on to more spiritual learning, we talked about the unseen energy that is Pure Thought in motion, that we can not see or feel, but whose effects we can see and feel, where and when it has been..

Now, Energy refers also to a force of thought, operating at a particular instant, that allows us to experience a particular reality. The quality of the ThoughtForce we select out of the entire spectrum determines the quality of the Reality we will experience. I spoke briefly about this aspect of Energy in an earlier posting about Vibration. Energy has Frequency and Intensity that present in an infinite variety of combinations.

Such a state of energy in less-aware human beings can only be experienced indirectly. It shows up in the quality of their behaviour, and how they judge the behaviour of others. It is evidenced in the kinds of limited and limiting beliefs  and opinions they harbour, how they feel about themselves and life generally, their general sense of vitality and, to the more perceptive observer, in the kind of event patterns they seem to attract and get embroiled in..

As individuals become more aware and sensitive, they are  able to discern pure energy more directly through their feelings, attitudes, impressions, passions, and their awareness of the kinds of thought patterns that they give attention to.

Validated now by the relatively new science of Quantum Physics, we are now reaching a more general discovery for ourselves of something that the sages have been trying to tell us for centuries past -- that we are each a bag of interacting thought-fields, which are themselves part of a cosmic Thought/Force that transcends what we formerly knew ourselves to be. We still have no idea of how big or powerful we actually are, and could yet become, but we're getting the idea that this thing is probably a lot bigger than we can possibly imagine right now.

By the way, we have always been this powerful (however powerful "this" might be), but because we didn't know it, or even know of the possibility of it, we had no way of accessing it. It is a given of being human that we can only ever live up to our expectations. We live up to our beliefs, and to our labels. No further. Our expectations and stunted perceptions of What's Possible have been holding us back here in the Dark Ages.

Our one-ness with the ThoughtForce of all creation is so close there is no room any longer to contemplate a relationship with it. For a relationship, there have to be at least two entities. But there is no separation from his ThoughtForce; it is what we are. encapsulated in a skinbag of imagined powerlessness. This ThoughtForce is alive and real. In my limited experience, it is the ONLY aliveness and realness. Without this realisation, we walk around upright and dead.

This new realisation has the power to dissolve and transform the old and the limited into the New and the Infinitely Possible. Once we let go of our attachments to the self as ego, and re-define our Self, and every other Self around us as the same ThoughtForce in action, there comes a radical shift in how we perceive life as it is, and as what it possibly could be. Even if nothing changes, we get a transforming perspective -- a wholly different point of view from the way we used to think "things are".

We see ourselves less and less as the victims of creation,

And more and more as the co-creators of it all.

GROWING

Retain the energies we already feel comfortable with

and

Expand our availability to include every new energy that presents itself.

Without resistance

YES

Sometimes it feels like flying

YES

Sometimes it feels like I'm dying.....

YES

HOW TO KILL LOVE

Shut down

Close off

any part of possible experience.

BANG

A SCALE OF LOVE

In one sense, Love just Is..
What is? ....  Love is. that's just what-is.

In another sense, Love moves on a scale, from Doing to Being.......
In ascending order of frequency --

SEX

ACCEPTANCE

REVERENCE

GRATITUDE

TRUST

DEEP APPRECIATION

WONDERMENT

AWE

UNCONDITIONAL EMBRACE

RELATIONSHIP -- SEPARATION AND ADDDICTION

My grateful thanks to Ron Smothermon for inviting me to stand here for a while. 

What follows is glimpses of the view I get from this place.

A core benefit of relationship is an increased level of co-operation in the game of life. This applies whether the relationship is with another person, an event or process, or with our selves.

Why do we get so hung up, though, on the need for a "special" relationship, especially with someone else? Why does a healthy human preference for connection with someone else become an intensified addiction -- an addiction that carries within it the seeds of the souring of that relationship?

Well, with good reason we all come from a Presumption of Separation. In our reality it is a given that "we" will be separated. Where did we get that idea? Well, our first , universal, intensely traumatic experience of life was one of separation  -- Birth! We don't get more separated than that (though we seem to spend a lot of our lives trying to beat it). Later on, at some time in our first 7 years of life we got further separated, this time from our Self, and we've felt Lost  and a Certain Emptiness ever since. In the process of trying to please our "betters", we bought the notion that there was something "wrong" with us.  Because these people were essential to our survival, we pushed our natural being aside and created something we thought would go down better with our parents, grandparents, families, teachers, priests and - later- bosses, colleagues, partners..... we ditched our Self  in order to survive, and we assumed it wouldn't matter. How mistaken we were!

THE PRESUMPTION OF SEPARATION

We had now unconsciously and erroneously put it together that Separation is a fact and an inescapable part of what it means to be alive. We didn't (and still don't) like it that way, and we resist it, which all goes to ensure that our Presumption  of Separation is going to persist, forever and ever, Amen!

Later on, feeling a growing sense of incompletion, we went looking for something and someone else to fill that gap. School buddies and Princess Snow-White showed up. Yipppeee! We thought we'd found what we were looking for. We suckered onto them and leaned on them for emotional support. When they moved away (and they usually will move away -- only a masochist wants that kind of burden for life!!) we fell over -- big time. The payoff was that we got to be right -- "See? I can't be happy on my own, and no-one's gonna stay with me forever -- I'm not worth it!"

OK, so that hadn't worked either, but  did we learn anything from that experience? Did we ever question the basic assumption  of Separation-As-Fact? No, we keep plugging away, trying anything but reconnect with what was never lost in the first place, just mislaid -- our Self.

To be separated from anything is painful. But we manage somehow for that pain to languish outside of our awareness and, frankly, we'd like to keep it that way.

But...

The pain continues, and presses for admission to our awareness in any way that might get our attention. Dis-ease is one way. Mental illness is another. Repetitive patterns of freedom-sapping behaviour are another. And so, too, are Addictions.

All addiction is attempt to keep pain unconscious and un-experienced.

An Addiction is a Condition

Defined by an acute onset of pain

(always present and un-experienced)

when the addictive substance, circumstances or person

is removed.
Any pain arising from the Addiction
Is judged to be preferable
To the imagined pain of whatever it is
We're running away from.

When we look for a Special Relationship, we literally vow to the other -- "I can't live without you because I think there's something wrong with me, and you now have to try and prove me wrong every day for the rest of your life. As part of that, I have this hurting hole inside me from where I evicted myself. I  need you now to fill this gap for me every day of my life and, if you can't, I'll evict you, too!" Then we walk down the aisle, and say it to each other in front of witnesses! And they applaud. If the priest in the middle had half a gram of common sense, he'd say "Hang on you two. Find the bits you threw out, put them back where they belong and where they fit perfectly by the way, then come back and see me again.We'll talk then about you two becoming partners, instead of emotional gap-fillers!" But that doesn't happen, does it?. We're addicted to the suffering that follows the welding together of two defective beings, each looking to the other for fast relief.

The need for a Special Relationship is an Addiction -- a desire that once mushroomed into a Preference, and is now pussed up into an emotional boil.

We fall into romantic love, expecting it to somehow "make" us happy forever. We find instead that living together ramps up the number and intensity of chances to get in touch with a barrage of our other addictions, like where the toilet seat should repose, or which is the right end of the toothpaste tube to squeeze from., or whether picking your toenails or your nose is filthy or just a cultural taboo ......?? In our legitimate yearning for connection , we find separation because we've mistaken Romance ("what I'm looking for is over there in the other person") for Oneness -- Love -- the Real Thing.

If the need for Special Relationship was not an addictive cover-up, we would let go of any notion of "specialness"; we would find and reconnect with our misplaced self, then we could go out and relate with others authentically.   No need for special status. No pressure on the other to fill a gap that was never their responsibility.

But rather than deal with the problem heart-on, the lazy person's remedy for the pain of separation from self is to demand a special, exclusive relationship with one particular person. It's convenient.We go into Special Relationship to protect ourself from the pain of separation; only to find that the pain does not go away. Well, we didn't really expect it to, did we? Coming as we do from a Presumption of Separation, we subconsciously expect the other to leave us -- either through death or divorce. So when the expected does happen, we blame the relationship and/or the other person, and further separate ourselves from our Self, and Nature, and other people.

A Special Relationship looks so attractive because we think it will help resolve the un-felt pain of Separation from Ourself. We think it will complete us. It does an attractive cover-up job, to be sure. But the pain is still there. When the relationship fails to cure the pain (and it usually does fail to do so), we are left even further separated  from our Self than we were before, and with the handy conclusion that our partner (and/or her parents and family) are the cause of the pain. We shift the responsibility for our fear and despair to someone else.

When a Special Relationship transits from being an attempt to cure the pain to being an explanation for it, the dramas begin!

Relationship itself is not a problem. Things go pear-shaped because of the Addiction to having a relationship with someone else in order to make up for a defective relationship we have with our self . Well, in case you hadn't noticed, that doesn't work. And it's highly unlikely that it ever will, because the relationship we have with another is a mirror image of the relationship we have with parts of our self.

We live, along with all our stuff, in a skinbag of flesh and bones. and we are hurting, because we have excised from this skinbag a huge chunk of what we are, and replaced it with bits and scraps of things that are not who we are. But instead of looking inward to find the source of our pain, we look outside this phony skinbag we have defined ourself to be, and project False Cause -- we direct blame anywhere except where it belongs, and primarily onto this Special Relationship with someone we feel has turned feral on us and let us down. Our pain is His/Her fault! 

In a way, the mistake is understandable because the pain resulting from separating from ourself is rarely experienced directly from its source. It is usually experienced through disguises like  uncharacteristic behaviour, illness, accidents, physical pain and emotional pain. In our ignorance, nevertheless, this blaming-out-there process takes personal irresponsibility to new depths.

In the first, heady days of a Special Relationship we seem to be "free" of discernible pain, a phenomenon we credit to our new lover/spouse/partner/significant other..... But we are still separated from our soul; the pain is merely anaesthetised. And, sooner or later, anaesthetics wear off . When pain finally surfaces, we hang the "cause" of it onto the poor unfortunate we wake up with. It's more convenient this way, and our ego can continue to look good to itself. We feel "Just-ified".

FALLING OUT OF LOVE


Despite what it says in the magazines and paperback novels, romantic love is not a healthy basis for involvement with someone. It's great for hors d"oeuvres but, if we're committed to our nourishment and growth, there comes a time when we need to move on to the rest of the banquet. If you really know how to love, there are billions of people out there waiting for you -- and your partner.

In romantic love, we stare fondly into each other's eyes
At the expense of looking where we're going.
Without being aware that we are doing it --
We look at this person we woke up with this morning
And we selectively forget why we first chose him/her.
Behind minor, irrational  irritations over the way he/she behaves
We feel a dull disquiet welling up from deeper inside
And we assume that this person is the source of the ache.
The question arises -- "How is this person at fault?"

You can scan your lover's ego in the present,
find the negative aspects of the very qualities that first attracted you to this person,
pick on the perceived points of "difference" between you,
start an argument
and then blame what he/she says and does in response
for the pain of separation you're now aware of.

If there is nothing happening at the moment that you can readily blame,
Your mind will enter "fault" into its search engine
and willingly trawl back through its memory files,
and trot out a listing of that person's supposed "past crimes" against you
And blame those past crimes for your present pain.
You now feel justified in pushing the pain onto the other.

Either way, it is soon not necessary to even crank up an argument with your lover,
because the argument is already going on
inside your head.
It now turns on automatically any time you need an explanation for, or protection from feeling "off".
The internal argument becomes 24/7 talk-back  radio.

A mass of past incidents accumulates in your head:
All of them together congeal into The Story you put together about this person --
Your story.
In the lunatic parliament of your mind, your story now becomes this person's total identity,
and you lose all track of the whole of who this person really is.
You are now married, not to the other, but to your "story about" the other.
Your story obscures the former reality to the point where it becomes conveniently invisible.
You've changed your mind. You have switched sides.
Another separation has occurred --
a split between who you originally created this person to be
and how you now choose to create him/her
in the light of your disowned pain.

The price we all pay for dis-owning the fact that we are the sole source of the pain of our self-created separations
Is the loss of any remaining ability to experience other people as they are.
We suffer the loss of Love.
We fall out of love.

All the stories we crank out about our family, our lovers, our friends, our workmates, our enemies,
Together make up our paranoid reality.
To our minds, these people really ARE the way we say they are:
"Thems" are doing it to me .
False-Cause -- a substitute for taking responsibility for

• your pain
• your separation
• from your self.

This is one reason why we should be very wary about using relationship for our personal growth. We can continue our growth within a relationship, by working on our own stuff, and leaving our partner to work on his/her stuff. Help out it you're asked to, but only with great care.  Limit yourself as much as possible to actively listening. Keep your advice in check. Otherwise, mind your own business. Notice any addictive urge that your partner should change in some way to fit your models and expectations. Go to work on your own head, and give space to any addictive demands your partner may have on you. Don't get hung up on getting results. Don't set models. There are no accidents -- this person is exactly right for you right now. Check your commitment, not to her though -- to yourself and your growth.

And this, too, is a part of what it means to be human.

So, what hope is there for redemption and clear relationships?

Every possibility.

It is possible to live with another person as part of your overall commitment

to go personally responsible for all your experiences.

But, be your own guru.
No matter how enlightened you think you are, you do not know what is "best" for any other.

No matter how enlightened your partner may appear to be, do not make him/her your god --

False Cause --

Nobody wants or needs that burden.
Be your own guru.

Making anyone outside of yourself a guru puts them at a distance --

More separation.

Choosing a guru can be a turning-point for you: hanging onto a guru will delay the moment of your own enlightenment.

A true guru acts like a sounding board, reflecting your self back to you.

A true guru is like a diving board; eventually you have to get off it -- others are waiting.

Either back off and admit that you're not up to the dive yet 

Get off and do whatever you have to to get ready.

Or get out there and take the Big Leap.

Only you can take the dive, the board cannot do it for you.

Once you leap, the board is gone, and the experience is uniquely and wholly your own.

Standing on the board all your life is not what you got up there for.

Now, if you fancy yourself as any kind of guru, any kind of spiritual adviser, and you want to maintain the guru act,

Don't get married.

She/he will blow the whistle on your act.

And that is not good for the act.

{Watch the wives/husbands of political leaders. Be aware that you're looking at people who have made an agreement with their partner not to blow the whistle on them -- at least not while they're still in office}

The pain of separation is a universal human experience.

The only question is the level of our awareness of it.

Projecting any of our pains onto outside sources is a Delaying Tactic, a Defensive Diversion.

While thus engaged, we function as an isolated, angry false-self in a paranoid, "I'm-the-victim-here" reality...

• hoping for enlightenment to rescue us (that's not what enlightenment is for)
• expecting relationship to fill the gaps (that's not what relationship is designed to do)
• spraying False Cause all over the place
• being "right" about it
• and making any "other" wrong.

Playing the Right/Wrong game is also a near-universal addiction. We do it to protect our ego

from the direct experience of guilt, not-knowing, the lack of control, and the pain of separation from our soul.

Here's a handy formula to succinctly summarise what we've been looking at --

Compulsive Involvement  + Addiction  = Romantic Love

No involvement + Addiction  =  A broken heart

No involvement  +  No addiction  =  Casual Acquaintance

Open Involvement  +  No addiction  =  Unconditional Love.

When we heal the faulty relationship we have with missing bits of our self, we're  then able to come clean into a real one-to-one relationship with another. That is a wondrous thing. It is like saying "I like being with you because, when I am with you, I feel safe enough to get in touch with , and share the parts of me that are beautiful, capable and loving."  But words won't do it for you. This has to be experienced.

Having another person around can help you do two things -- to resonate with, and to mirror your self. But don't fall into the trap of crediting the mirror for what you get. So, get off your Sorry Cushion, get out there and put up the "Available"  sign. Trust that the universe will provide you with a  perfect partner (perfect for your growth, that is) when you are ready. In the meantime, work on yourself until you get to a level of awareness and skill where you can select wisely at a higher, as well as lower, level of consciousness. Take full responsibility for the partner you select -- there are no mistakes.

A conscious relationship can be good for your enjoyment, good for your growth, and both!

When I am imposing myself upon others

I am actually reflecting my restrictions

And the lack of freedom

That I feel inside.

I am realising now that how I am toward myself

Is how I am with others

and that

How I am towards others

Is how I am with my self.

I know now

How I would like myself to be with others .

I would like to give them, and myself

Room to grow

 Together

INHIBITION AND RESENTMENT

Are you chronically shy?  If so, what resentments do you harbour? About what? Against whom?

Are your resentments worth more than your freedom?

RESENTMENT

Resentment is a mental and emotional resistance to a limited  perception of what we think happened. The events may be so long ago we may even have forgotten exactly what they were. But we haven't forgotten how we felt, and someone is going to pay for that!! As the years pass, ageing resentments are rarely directed where they belong. Some other poor sod gets to wear what we refuse to let go of and complete with.

Resentment is an emotional re-living, re-creating, re-hashing, or re-fighting of some past experience. It grinds away like a broken record, but one that becomes more potent with each replay. In counseling, when I find a caller re-visiting an old battlefiield, I will often gently interrupt the flow, explain that yet another re-telling may only reinforce a reaction that clearly is not working, and invite him/her to participate in other lines of enquiry that will explore the archeological site of hurt from a fresh trench. The trick is to unearth what underlies the story without driving the whole thing further underground.

Justified or not, resentment is self-damaging. These days, I thankfully care less and less about how right I am. Being right never healed anything for anyone, and never will. But it has taken me a long time -- far too long -- to get the message. Righteousness and Guilt -- the ugly twin sisters,  are the hammer that drives the nails deeper into the wounds. Forget Easter, we crucify our selves daily on the rack of Resentment  and Righteous Guilt..

Resentment prevents us from seeing ourselves as self-reliant and at-cause in our lives. It makes us the victim of circumstances and of other people, and more prone to fail. In resentment, we surrender the reins of our life to the very people we resent, and allow our image of them to dictate how we will feel and act. And they (usually) don't know, and couldn't care less, that we have handed them that power. They know there's something wrong, and that we're acting crazy. And we are. Crucifying ourself in the hope that someone else will feel bad about it -- is NUTS!!!

Resentment nails us to the Cross of The Dead Past, and pushes us to look for further injustices to replace those that have lost their juice or that we may have actually forgotten about. And we always find what we expect to find. In a life that isn't working, Resentment gives us something to feel "right" about,  dragging a rotting corpse into The Present like the family cat with a dead bird. We are so hell-bent on using Resentment to cover up a lousy self-image that we end up validating and reinforcing it.

Resentment is an exceedingly expensive emotion. It may have cost me a ripe old age

What's eating you? Resentment is a cancer.

Are your resentments worth it?

The Antidote to Resentment

Forgiveness. Letting go. Casting off from the rocks where you've been stuck.

Resentment is a stuckness that you just walk out of.
Walk away.
Forgive.

Forgive who? Forgive Ourself. Any resentments I still have are rankling on over here in my space. All your resentments and suffering are going on over there in you. I am doing it to me: you are doing it - to you. And that is the best news you could ever get. If someone else was doing it you you, they would have to get therapy for you to be happy. And you never would get happy, even if they did. But because YOU are doing it to you, you can un-do it any time you're ready.

Forgive your stuckness. Forgive your ignorance, and your stupidity around that. Forgive your hurt. Forgive your limited perception. Let go.

Forgive the "other" in yourself. Let it go.

The act of Forgiving (not to be confused with "pardoning") is acting in your own intelligent best interests.

INHIBITION

Resentment and guilt work in tandem to inhibit the freedom of our natural spirit. This, from my lifelong experience over my father -- a man whom I adored,  feared and resented  in equal measure........

Unable to ever physically or emotionally stand up to my father (until my late teens when I contrived to trap him in a moral bind), I resisted his violently imposed strictures with heavily internalised churning resentment. Because of my concomitant love for him, my resentment triggered torrents of guilt.


Racked with resentment, guilt and an appallingly low self-esteem, I became painfully shy, self-conscious, covertly hostile, nervous, irritable and sickeningly "nice" in my overly needy efforts to get along with everybody. I had no hope of genuinely expressing my self in the world (even if I had known who I was -- and I didn't.) The Playful Adventurer in me was constantly at war with the Irresponsible Danger. But I did not know that at the time. All I noticed was that, under stress I began to "stutter all over", and sometimes throw up. How literal our bodies are! By the time I reached my late 20's I shook so badly I could no longer play the organ in church -- and music had been my rock and salvation up to then. I took up acting as a means to self-discovery and expression. That worked as a therapy and led me indirectly to the journey of inward discovery. But the damage had been done. Now, after 6 decades of stuttering all over, my heart has joined in the dance of arrhythmia, and I can feel my brain succumbing to the effects of interruptions to the blood supply.


Resentment, guilt and inhibition take a terrible toll on the perpetrator. They pull us out of the Present, an absence that is at the root of all dissatisfaction in life. Our emotional thermostats are locked permanently in the Dead Past, onto a fiction that exercises an iron control over the Present, rendering us helpless to respond appropriately to anything in the Here and Now.

Resentment inhibits. Resentment ties us to a dead corpse, forcing us to "shy" away from anything new and fresh. Whenever we are challenged to come out into the open, we wonder in advance and rehearse.

Resentment is the death of creative spontaneity.

The Escape Hatch is Forgiveness.

Nothing is worth hanging onto. Nothing.

And I know you are probably going to have to find that out for yourself. I just thought I'd warn you.

That's all.

PEELING THE ONION

In cross-section, the onion looks a bit like this.......

.7. POSSESSIONS

.6. PERSONALITY

.5. MIND

.4. BODY

.3. SOUL

.2. CONSCIOUSNESS

.1. AWARENESS

The challenge of being human, to this human being, seems to be to embrace all of the above, allowing each layer to interact in harmony. You don't have to get rid of material possessions or forsake bodily pleasures in order to be spiritual. This is just my opinion (and therefore to be taken with a grain of salt), but spirituality that eschews the more earthly pleasures and challenges tends to be esoteric and, frankly, somewhat impractical for those of us baser beings who have to wrestle with a different kind of reality, as well as the reality in which the ascetics live. This doesn't in any way invalidate the ascetic experience; it just puts it into perspective. If you think it's tough hanging upside-down in a mountaintop cave for 30 years contemplating the meaning of existence, try probing for meaning and purpose down here on the flatlands on the daily treadmill of work, career, relationships, health, money, spiritual exploration, social interaction and responsibility..         

It is my contention, 

and one I invite you to stand in long enough to live the experiences that will enable you to make up your own minds (yes, there are more than one of them!)

that......

The purpose of being human is to be human --

As consciously and fully as you can manage to Be.

Your experience of that, whatever it turns out to be, is no more or less valid than the vilest criminal or the greatest saint. (A truth is, you are both those things, anyway.)

The only suggestion that comes with the gift of life is --

Be Aware

And even that is optional, at least until the moment of dying. Then you will have no choice. My suggestion is to get in early. Willing Awareness has a lot to recommend it as a way of living. Enforced Awareness as a way of dying guarantees huge amounts of resistance, despair, anger, regret, and guilt, all under time pressure at a moment when few of us get  the chance of another crack at it.

Either way, you will get all that you came here for.

Do you remember what that is?