COMMUNICATING TRUTH -- A MASTER CLASS

NB. The following may be dangerous to your level of social acceptance, and may require you to re-define what you mean by "friends".
Your mind may fizz and hiss and fart upon reading this -- this is natural. Pay no attention.

• Remind your self of the Ruthless Rules of Communication, especially the one about -- People may not always get what you say, but they will always get where you're coming from when you say it, and how they feel when you say it.
• Before you open your mouth, own the reflection. Whatever you see in the situation is your stuff. Find it in yourself (empathy), then draw in resources from the rest of your self. Truth will encompass everything and its opposite.
• Mind your own business. When you're asked for your opinion, or for your agreement with someone else's opinion, gracefully decline. Opinion is the lowest form of non-truth.
• When you are asked for your perspective, speak only your own truth (c.f. my blog on "Truth")
• Remember, your truth is yours, and will not be identical to the truths of others. Nor is your truth any more valid or "right" than any others. Yours is just another truth. Anything you feel arrogant about is not truth; it has become a dogma or an opinion. I suggest you test the importance of your beliefs and opinions by simply going into the nearest park on a starry night and venting your opinions with all the passion you can muster, then watch carefully how much the universe moves as a result.
• There is something about Truth, however, that the universe will move for -- when you learn how to ask, and how to notice.
• Be sensitive, gentle and kind. Even when the other person needs to be slapped sensible, do it with love. 
• If "considering" anothers' feelings prevents you from speaking your truth when it is called for, warn the others that you are going to treat them as grown-up enough to handle the truth, and give them the option of whether they are yet ready to hear you. Respect their decision. Ask if they would like to change the subject.
• Any time you feel like you're treading on eggshells around someone, that person is successfully manipulating you. You need to decide whether that situation is of their making, or yours. If you're undecided, ask -- e.g. I get the feeling at the moment that there are just some things I cannot talk about freely with you. Is that just me, or is there something here you're touchy about?"  If you are not the source of the withhold, call him/her on it, firmly and gently. If they still insist upon you withholding truth, walk away from the subject. Be with that person -- he/she is scared, and you know what that feels like. But fear is never justification for enslaving others. Polite-icians consider everything before they speak. They are obsessed with what you may like or dislike, and with avoiding being held accountable for what emerges from their mouths. They are terrified of being disliked for their truths, even when they justify them by being "right". Poilte-icians would rather lie than be disliked. They'll lie about their lying, even unto themselves.
• Make authenticity your prime consideration. Talk heart to heart, not just head to head. Be human, raw and alive, rather than rehearsed  and polished. 
• What you say may hurt, but if it is authentic to your heartfelt human experience, it will be recognised and will also heal. I would rather be hurt by a truth (temporary) than succoured (suckered) by a lie (permanent).
• Any situation where something is withheld is a lie. Nothing good can ever come from a lie -- not in the longer run.
• Don't get angry. Why should you suffer for other people? Have your own suffering, and let them learn to deal with theirs. By all means be available if they're in strife. Identify and remind them of their strengths, but don't bullshit them without their express permission.
• In a dual universe, your truth, especially if you are positional about it, will encounter opposition. You will make enemies. Don't get bent out of shape by that. What other people think of you is none of your business. 
• Understand that most people unconsciously define a "friend" as "someone who'll go along with your lies if you'll go along with theirs." Become, instead, the "best friend" who, if asked, will tell someone what even their best friends won't tell them.
• Commune-icate your understandings and what you see of choices and options. Then let them take what you've said on board and support them in doing whatever they want to do (we all do what we WANT to do, regardless of our protestations to the contrary). There should be no question of anyone following you, but of finding and obeying their own intelligence. Help them do that. Remember that we are all being drawn towards what we are becoming, and you do not even know what that is for yourself, let alone what it might be for anyone else. Be free with suggestions when they're asked for, but keep your advice to yourself.
• Appeal to their own knowing, intelligence and past experience. Ask them what they want, and how they think you can help them get what they want. Share your experiences and perspective as clearly as possible, making it clear that they are entitled to draw differing conclusions. Then leave it to them. Outline possible choices and decision options, but put everyone's freedom and responsibility to make choices and decisions firmly in their court. Be as forthright and theatrical as your personality dictates in your delineation of their dilemma, but resist every temptation or inducement to advise or direct them.(I'm doing that right now, aren't I? Good. It's your decision; I leave it up to you).
• Get them to articulate what they've decided -- whatever that is. Even a decision to do nothing, or stay undecided is still a decision and should be appreciated as such. 
• Whatever the other has decided, be happy that a decision has been made, and encourage the other to celebrate it -- immediately (even if it's just a cup of coffee, a prayer, or anything else that is meaningful to them, and immediately do-able). Mark the moment with an experience. Rituals are important. Help the other emotionally give a "Yes" to their "yesses", and an equally expansive "Yes" to their "no's".
• Once you have put something out there, seek feedback on what the other has heard.

I am not interested in obedient followers:
I hanker. though, for intelligent fellow-travellers.
How do you feel about that?

I am as ordinary as you are,
With just a little difference.. .....
I am half awake, and you are half asleep.
But that is not much of a difference
Because I nod off from time to time,
And you can open your eyes at any moment.

Shall we dance?

TOTAL SELF-ACCEPTANCE

Who am I?

What will I become?

What you will be

Already is

And always has been.

But it is not yet known.

It is in the process of be-coming

And being real-ised
In linear experience.

Since our conception

What we are has been in a constant process of evolving.

The universe has organised itself

For us to happen
Just as we are.

Look back along the timeline of your life

And notice all the events and people who conspired with you

For You to happen and become

What you are.

Stop fighting it.

Ride a horse in the direction it's going -- it's easier.

What you will become

Is drawing you

And all you have created yourslf to be

Towards it.

Everything is on track.

There is nothing wrong.

Surrender

And engage with the journey.

I am.

You are.

It is.

Be in it.

Get to know it.

A servant was walking one morning in the marketplace

When he saw Death walking towards him.

Terrified, he ducked down a side alley

And ran home to his master.
"Help me!" pleaded the servant.

"I have just seen Death in the marketplace.

Please loan me one of your horses that I might flee to Samarkand."

The master took pity on the poor wretch and gave him  a horse.

The servant fled the city for Samarkand at full gallop.

Later that afternoon the master, too, was walking in the marketplace

Where he encountered Death.

"Why are you here?" he demanded of Death. "Why did you so terrify my servant this morning here in the market place?"

"I was surprised," replied Death.

"Surprised to see him here,

When I have an appointment with him tonight

In Samarkand."

TRUTH

Truth can only be realised anew;
Truth cannot be borrowed.
Truth is what you consciously realise
From your own, personal experience.
Borrowed knowledge is not Knowing.
Knowing comes from personal experience,
Which is always unique.

Like a costume,
Borrowed truth can be tried on to see how it fits
And I encourage everyone to do that,
As many times a day as you can.
But only so that you can have your own experience
From within that perspective,
And Know what you discover for yourself.


Truth cannot be spoken;
It is beyond language.
I can only speak ABOUT the truths I've experienced --
Including this one --
And hope to evoke the unspeakable blossoming of a truth
Realising inside of you.

Truth is permanent -- forever,
And it is ephemeral -- transient.
Both.
Which places it well outside the capabilities of the limited Mind.
Truth cannot be understood;
It is either known, or not known.

Because Truth is so highly individual,
It cannot be decided by consensus or referendum.
No Truth is validated or invalidated by a majority....
It is not a question of voting.
It does not matter if the whole world says something is so,
If it is not your experience
Then it is not your Truth.
When Pilate, hoping to trap Jesus, said to him "They tell me you're the King of the Jews",
Jesus replied "What is your experience of me?"
Pilate hadn't thought of that.

Most people don't know the Truth
Even when it hits them over the head;
Most of us are so full of umpteenth-hand ideas about supposed truths
That they haven't had room or time to experience a real, live, juicy truth
Since they were knee-high to a grasshopper.
All your integrity can do with someone else's assumed "truth"
Is incorporate it as a possibility into your "Maybe" File
And then see what shows up in your experience.
Whatever shows up will be your truth -- for now.

Even when the whole world says something is so
("Everybody knows......"),
If it is not yet in your experience,
Then it is not your Truth.
Conversely, if something is in your deeply held, conscious experience,
Then it is your Truth --for now
And it really doesn't matter a twopenny damn
What anyone else thinks, says, or believes:
Does it?

How do we tell the difference between a Truth and a belief?
If you feel "right" about it -- that's a belief.
A belief excludes alternate possibilities;
A Truth seeks and includes other truths.
A Truth is something you feel neither right nor wrong about;
You just "know" it in your innermost feeling
And your heart quietly signs on
For as long as this Truth lasts.

THE FALL FROM GRACE

We awake in Christ's body

As Christ awakens our bodies

Symeon, the New Theologian

But that blessed state doesn't last long.

We lose touch with Godness
And learn quickly

To become, instead, like our parents,

Then others we love,
Trying to mould our selves into what we think they want us to be.

We get on with the business 

Of being human.
We forget what we are.

How we feel about this sellout, however,
Depends on what we believe life is all about.
I have found that...

All the great lessons and adventures in life arise because

We're experiencing everything

From within a False Self.
Without a false self we'd experience no dramas,
Or comedies for that matter.
No entertainment.
When was the last time you saw a fictional play, TV show or movie,
Where nothing happened to ruffle the waters?
Where nothing went wrong?
Where nobody got themselves into trouble?
Without perturbation, the entertainment industry would go broke.
Even Snow White had her problems!
Imagine, if you can, the Bible without any hairy bits.

Limitation and resistance are illusions we buy into.
Like actors, we suspend our disbelief in strife
In order to experience something we couldn't otherwise get.
It's why we came here --
Heaven got boring.

But there comes a time when enough limitation is enough;
Not just because we can't take it any more,
But perhaps also because we created these conflicts and separations we've got,
So that we could transmute them.
Maybe this game has a purpose after all!

By now, we already know "limited"
And what its consequences feel like.
Inside out.
There comes a time to grow up.
Is it your time yet?

When you're ready,
Keep be-littling your self

But notice, too,

How limitless you are.
Both......
The limitless experiencing limits,
(Just for a while.
Just for the hell of it.)
Got it?

Now notice what you've been suffering about --
What's just happened with it?

EMPATHY

I just saw something about empathy....

It feels like an opening-up,
A letting go of some constriction.....
I don't know what, and I'm sure it no longer matters.
Apart from the release.


In that moment
I became aware of emotionally recognising something
About two things from my own experience --

• The other's situation,

• And that person's spirit in their response to it.

My heart exploded in one-ness
And my world shifted a little on its axis.
Wow!

I also get that
It happened over here in my space
To me,
Out of me.
What I do about it is another matter,
And up to me.

EXTRESSION/REPRESSION

Expression and Repression
Can be either processes of Doing, or states of Being.

As a verb, a way of Doing ----
People who are expressing their ecstasy, or rage, or whatever...
Are too busy paying it out on someone else
To have it themselves.
Their experience is of the expressing,
Not of the thing being expressed.
I know people (including myself sometimes)
Who express emotion in order to avoid having it.
One evening at Uluru I was watching a gorgeous sunset
When some inconsiderate  cosmic wanker,
Totally in love with the sound of her own voice,
Started waxing loudly lyrical about the light, the quality of the energy, the chi, and everything else she identified herself with at the time.
I got annoyed because she was pulling me out of my experience.
I wanted to yell at her,
"Please....Shut up and HAVE your experience;
And let me have mine!".
(I chose instead to bite my tongue
And have my experience of "frustration-and-anger-at-sunset").

Expressing and Repressing experience are sure ways to keep you attached
To whatever is pulling your lariat.
The only way to complete with an experience
Is the HAVE it,
Preferably without guilt or judgment.
But if other such experiences attach themselves,
Simply acknowledge their presence
And include them in the party.

As a noun, a state of being ---
Expression and Repression happen naturally
When you simply BE what you are.
What you are emanates from your Being.
There's a natural authenticity about that.

You can simply get out of your own way;
BE what you are, and HAVE what you've got.
Now that's a way to behave!
And it's neither rocket science nor sainthood.

Can you be what you are?
Can you have what you've got?
Of course you can!
We may both be a little out of practice,
But our intention will always show up.
So have it.
So be it.

RELIGION & PSYCHOLOGY

There comes a time in all healing
When the bandages have to come off,
The splints need to be removed,
And the crutches sent back to the hospital
For others to use.

Religion may lead you to the gates,
But it is a poor substitute for spirituality.
Psychology may lead you to the threshold
But it is a makeshift expedience for responsible enlightenment.
There comes a time when.........
A spiritual person needs no religion;
A responsible, enlightened person needs no psychology.
He/she may not be changed
Or any "better",
But they are transformed.
Life is not about getting "saved",
Or "cured".
It's about getting happy, whole and healed.

UNDERSTANDING

"I understand."
Good.
But not done yet.
Understanding is an illusion,
A trick of the mind.
Understanding is the mind's sigh of relief
When it has found a pigeon-hole in its files
To fit something into.
Done and dusted -- no threat to the status quo.
Understanding is the opposite of discovery.
Understanding calls an end to questioning
And creating.

Understanding is not Knowing.

Go deeper.
Go deeper.
Do nothing
But
Be
With it.

What is the experience
Underlying this understanding?
What is the reality of this?
Go deeper and further
Until understanding becomes
"Got it!"......
"A-hah!!".....
"Uhhh................."

WAITING....

There are some doors that,
When they open,
How long we waited is no longer an issue.
Those are the ones worth waiting for.

LOVE YOUR ENEMIES

It is reported that Jesus said
"Love your enemies, even as you love your self."
What is not clear to me, over the passage of time,
Is whether he uttered that as a commandment,
Or an observation of What-Is.
Maybe it is both.

It is a given of being human that,
Whatever we see in others
Must exist in us,
Otherwise we could not recognise it.
Do you get that?
Until you do, you're stuck in an illusion
Of separation;
You think the person that you see before you is "different" from you.
Well, that's OK.
I still make the same mistake
And have to keep re-minding myself.

How we feel about what we see in another
Is pretty much how we feel about the same stuff
In our self.
Isn't that handy?
We can look at the vitriol we're pouring on someone we don't like,
And begin to get a handle on what we're doing to ourselves.
It's handy because the other may be utterly unaware of what you're doing to him,
Or he may not give a hoot what you think about him,
But, whether you are aware of it or not,
You are copping to it,
And suffering very much at you own hands.
Our judgments, of self or of others,
Are killing us.

To the extent (in quantity and quality)
To which we allow and love another,
We also allow and love our self.
And vice versa.
We cannot reject any part of our self
And simoultaneously, authentically accept and relate with another;
That is just not possible.

So people with lousy self-esteem
Who try to love their neighbours
Are headed for certain failure,
And doomed to become "saviours" and busybodies.

We cannot give away what we don't have.

If Truth be known,
We would not want those we don't like
To be any other way
Than exactly as they are.
Otherwise we'd have to pin our "don't like" costumes on someone else,
Or, God forbid, wear them ourselves
(And we'd rather die than do that!)
We want our enemies to be right where they are,
So that we don't have to go responsible for our own self-loathing.
And we get mightily bitter and twisted if they don't hold still for that.
We LOVE our enemies;
They give some of us a reason to get up in the mornings.

But how long is it since we acknowledged the love we have
For those same enemies within?
Those "enemies"
That our enemies reflect back to us?

Love thine enemy,

For he is thyself.

LOVE & HATE

Why do marriages that began so lovingly
Turn acid so quickly when the partnership dis-integrates?

Well, it's possible that we were kidding ourselves;
Maybe we weren't as "integrated"
As our hormones and romantic fantasies
Led us to believe.

But I've come today with something far more fundamental than that --
The duality of Love, and whatever its polar opposite may be for us.
No mater how flat you squash a coin, it still has two sides --
Heads and tails.
In this realm, everything has an opposite.
The opposite of "love" can be "indifference", "loathing", "obsession", "lust".....
We all have lot of "love-opposites" in our personal lexicon.
But, for the sake of simplicity just for now,
Let's use a common code-word -- "hate" to signify whatever the antithesis of "love" is for us......

Romantic love carries within it
The seeds of its own termination. 

In Love (as a context)
We "fall in love",
Which is a more romantic way of saying
We adopt a position we call "love",
Along with a lot of attendant feelings, emotions, hopes, expectations, ideals, beliefs and opinions
About what the experience should feel like
And how it should go.
Because a lot of the stuff we have wrapped around "love" is positional,
Falling in love also means "falling in hate",
At one and the same moment,
We just didn't see that at the time,
And we would have resisted anyone who tried to point it out to us. Right?

[It's also worth noting that when we decide to "hate" someone or something,
We have also fallen in "love", at least with our idea of it.
I got this lesson at the hands of a Swiss-German arsehole
Who was in my face daily for over 5 years.
Lessons don't come much harder than that!]

If we can get a handle on what is going on
With this Love/Hate thing,
We're less likely to get spooked
By the inevitable surprises that arise from ignorance.
Love and hate are the obverse of each other;
Neither can exist without the other.
At the outset of loving,
The hate may not be visible,
But it is there:
At the outset of "hate",
It takes a rare kind of vision to see the loving that underpins it
And you may have to take it on trust, as I did for many years,
Until I could see it.
But in a world of duality,
The polar opposites of everything are there --
Just biding for a climate change to reveal their presence.

Through meditation comes a very different kind of love,
A kind of love that we cannot "fall into" or "fall out of".
I find this kind of love impossible to describe,
But talking "about" it, I feel it like a compassionate one-ness
Which I rise to meet, rather than "fall into".
It descends/envelops when I integrate good and bad, love and its opposite.
God and demon.
A Meditation of Acceptance and Surrender
Helps to synthesize and complete.
We reach a quality of being
That has no opposite to it
Because it is the Yes-ful Ah-ness of all opposites.

MEDITATION

(With acknowledgment to Baghwan Shree Rajneesh [Osho])

Meditation is like cleaning our mirror

Of everything we did not come with

When we were born ---

Ideas, ideals, ideologies,

Concepts, opinions, beliefs

Morals, values and rules,

All the detritus
Of the conditionings of state, religion, culture and family.

Meditation is like clearing away the weedy winter-growth from an overgrown garden,
And re-discovering long-forgotten beauties and treasures.
In meditation we re-discover

Our original, pristine innocence..

Our "I-know-sense"...

And becoming once again the undistorted mirror

In which others gaze

To see themselves.

Meditation is re-birth...

Man's reconnection with himself, with other men and with nature.

But in this Re-birth we are no longer helpless,

Or totally dependent on others or the environment

For our survival or nourishment.

In this rebirth we become sovereign in our own be-ing.

Meditation  is no-religion:
It is a practice of our pure spirituality.
Meditation is a way of getting through what we are not,
To what and where we are.

THE "Y" FACTOR

Right and Wrong,
Good and Bad
Are the opposite horns of a dilemma.
A giant "Y"
On which we each crucify ourselves
In the world's longest Easter.

We argue and reason ourselves
Back and forth
From one point to the other,
Day in, day out,
Year after year
Until we collapse
Into the centre --
And discover the wisdom
Of What-Is.

If you cannot find the centre-point of balance,
Where are you looking?
In your mind?
It will not be found there.
I will be found in your heart.

What are you looking with?
Your mind?
Wrong tool.
Reason and logic will not serve you here.
Look into your heart and soul
With heart and soul.

Why haven't I made peace yet with this AND that?
Why am I allowing myself to remain confused,
Strung out between the horns of separation?
Is maintaining the "WhY?" factor
Worth the confusion and dis-ease?

Only you
Know that.

SATAN & THE DEVIL -- ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE....

I have heard......

"Satan" comes from a Hebrew word meaning "struggle".

Now that figures!

Try this on for size.......
If to "sin" is to "miss" (that's what the word means),
Maybe the ONLY sin
Is Struggle.
Easy is right.
Hmmmm?.....

The word "Devil" derives from the Sanskrit word, "deva" which means "god".
And Lucifer means "light".

I get that God and devil,
Good and evil
Are two sides of the same coin,
Inseparable polarities of What-Is.

When we change our attitude or context
Good and evil swap,
Each becomes the other.
For example -- one of the ten commandments is "Thou shalt not kill",
But when you turn the page, it seems there's a rider --
"...... except in war."

God and devil,
Lucifer and Gabriel
Jesus and Judas........
Each, on its own, is an illusion,
A metaphor;
But BOTH together
Are the What-Is of being human.

WHO ARE YOU?

Magnetically, we are all drawn
To what we are.
Your are
All that you are aware of
Right now.


Right now, I really get that I'm not my body. I can feel my body slowly shutting down, but I am becoming more alive and "younger". It seems like I and my body are going in opposite directions! The only question is, how long will it be before I and my body part company? Answer: When we part company, and not a moment before.

And I'm no longer the things I once identified with -- career, husband, father, grandfather, writer, musician, actor, counsellor, wise man -- those things are being removed, and I'm still here. I am what remains after all identifications  are let go of.......

What is that?

Pure Awareness.
The Awareness of that which is aware of "me".

In the meantime
I'm doing my best to behave myself,
But not quite in the way my father meant it
When he yelled at me in frustration -- "Behave yourself!!!"

How do you behave yourself?
By what you choose to "be"
And what you choose to "have".
Be-Have your self.
Be all that you are aware of;
Be all that you are.
Have all that you are aware of;
(You can have something without owning, stealing or otherwise possessing it...)
Have all that you are.

Just stay with the game; and
Be aware.

JUMP.......

The springboard into the adventure of living
Is Self-Confidence --
That ability we all have to be in trust with ourselves,
The willingness to confide in ourselves.

What? You don't think you have the ability for Self Confidence?
Take it from one who lost it long before he knew it
And spent his life looking for it,
Often down many blind alleys......

• Confidence in self is readily available
• Your ability of connect with it is available
• Both are as close as one word -- "Yes"
• No-one is going to force you to say "Yes". For as long as you insist upon, and justify Lack of self-confidence, you are welcome to have all the attendant experiences that flow from your choice. Knock yourself out. When you change your mind, "I" will be around.

The kind of confidence I speak of
Has an utterly different feel to it
From cocksureness, conviction, rightness, smugness, certitude,
And even credit, belief, hope or faith.
True Confidence
Arises from, and radiates a quiet repose and humility,
An inherent secureness, quietitude and tranquility.
Real confidence oozes latent Is-ness.

When our level of felt self-confidence is lowered
In times of separation and stress,
We shrink back from the edge of Opportunity.
Our minds fill up with all manner of rational, valid, justifying reasons
For not taking The Jump --
Explanations that make "good sense"
And seem to help us look good to our selves
And to others.
Oh, how right we are!

Jumping is essential to growing,
Kids know that;
And it is always a risk,
So-called grown-ups resist that.
We've learned to give more credence to Fear than to Destiny.
We don't jump when the clear and present fear of the risk is more powerful
Than the as-yet unproven benefits of the jump.

Well, what is the risk?
Fear of the death of what?
Stand in that question for a while.

What else feels risky?
Fear of letting go of the familiar?
(Better the devil you know.....)
Fear of falling back upon yourself?
(Not knowing if there's anyone there.)
Fear of dying to what you think you are
Without any certainty of what will remain?
Lack of trust?
What is trust, if not the sensing, recognising and realising
That my truest self is immortal and abundant
And willing to surrender to this life
Just as it is.

We were born in un-adult-erated Trust,
But we didn't know it.
Then we lost contact with it.
That was part of the deal,
So that we could experience the pure joy of consciously finding Trust again,
And getting to know it for the first time.

Trust is re-discovered when we choose to drop all conditions
And re-open ourselves to What-Is,
Letting go all all our "good reasons" for numbing ourselves.

Numbing myself was "killing me softly."

AD-MIRATION

Other people never are exactly as we think them to be,
For at least three very good reasons ---

1) We can only see (recognise) in others what we are aware of from within our self. Our view of others is limited by our level of self-awareness; and

2) What we see of everything around us is coloured by our own experiences, feelings. beliefs and expectations; and

3) We forget (or don't even know about) the laws of Duality, and choose to see only the bits of others that we want to see. We never see the whole person -- not all at once anyway.

To "admire" a person or thing is to look into a mirror and see reflected.....
"Admiration" contains the word "mirror".

When we admire, we see in another something we most like about our self.
(And the reverse is also true)

But whether the other person actually possesses those desirable qualities ought not to be taken as read. Nor should we discount the fact that they also have other, conflicting qualities that we may not be aware of. We mis-read others, and when they do something "out of character", we blame them! We get emotionally bent out of shape when someone does or says something that doesn't fit with the model of them that we've created for ourselves. This phenomenon is nowhere more evident than in our primary relationships with our parents and partners. We think we "know" them, then wonder why they sometimes "turn" on us, and why some of our "best-friend" relationships turn overnight into a train wreck.

When I look at you, or you look at me, we are seeing a mirror-ball of reflections -- rotating fragments of flash-glimpses of recognised bits of ourself. That's just how it is. Now what we see in another may be pretty close to a bit of their reality, as far as that goes, but what we think we know about them is never the whole thing. Never. We don't even know the whole of our selves! How can we possibly recognise and know the whole of another?

It's not anyone else's job to live down to your limited idea of them. Nor is it your job to keep anyone else comfortable by fitting in to their creation of you. As far as is possible, consider one another's sensibilities, but not at the expense of being all that you are. Allow yourself, and the other person to be exactly as he/she is, in their entirety, and not just as you see yourself, him, or her to be. Prepare and allow yourself to be surprised. Be grateful for any new glimpses you get; others are mirrors into your own unknown.

If you experience any kind of discomfort or suffering with a new discovery, become aware of your level of true self-confidence.

If you feel like a rug has been whipped out from under you,  look into the health of your self-reliance.

And be grateful for those insights, too.

THE NO-WIN BIT OF GROWING UP

From the moment of conception onwards, we've all had some way of responding to situations, ways that grew ever more sophisticated as time went on... until .....

There came a time in early childhood when we realised that not everything we did remained as cute as it once was, and some things even earned downright disapproval -- either tacit or overt. We began to encounter moments when certain responses from us to our perceived environment were no longer being admired by people we loved, especially our parents. And we couldn't understand why they changed toward us, but we figured it had to be that there was something "wrong" with us.

Which put us in a bind.... the threatening things and situations were not changing. The crises they triggered within were still very much there for us, but our responses were not approved of by people we not only loved nearly and dearly, but upon whose support we relied for sheer survival. So we solved that problem by suppressing our natural responses. We became "ir-response-able", in order to survive.

Which put us in an even deeper bind..... in trying to please others by suppressing ourselves, we generated an internal, emotional cocktail of despair, separation, grief, frustration, anger, jealousy (especially if we had siblings)..... all of which also had to be suppressed. We were definitely not allowed to get angry, frustrated or jealous with our parents and siblings -- how could we? We loved them! We were toting an ever-growing grab-bag of separating emotions, that we didn't feel we had a right to, and had no legitimate way of putting them where they belonged. We dealt with the pain of that, firstly by numbing ourselves to it, reducing our awareness and sensitivity; and later by taking it out on ourselves. We became accident- and illness-prone.

This growing pustule of internalised, accumulated resentment, frustration, anger, anxiety, despair, grief, etc. lies perilously close to the surface, ready to pop at the first sign of experiencing threat or offence. And when it does, we'll pay it out on any unfortunate who happens to be handy -- as long as.... 1) that person is not the real, legitimate target of our resentments and fears; and...  2) that person can't fight back and do serious damage. One of the reasons why relationships encounter difficulty is because most of us go into them without first resolving the unfinished business from our first and fundamental relationship -- the one we have with our parents. We carry over our stuff from there to taint every other relationship we'll ever have. Our poor spouse, our bosses, family members and any others we give emotional authority over us cop buckets of stuff that belong to our Mum or Dad. And they wonder what they've done wrong! (They're doing it, too, in their lives, but they don't make the connection either.)

What was once child-like, innocent, confident Being-ness became perverted years ago into self-rightness and self-importance. Self-confidence and self-awareness got lost. We mislaid our ability to respond appropriately and began reacting like emotional robots.

FROM UNDERDOG TO TOPDOG

We become what we resist.

[I vowed I would never become like my Dad. Never!.......... Well, the big difference between him and me is that I can talk and write about it. For that alone, I'm grateful to Mum]

As crises arise in our personal daily dramas, the reservoir of resentment, frustration, insecurity and hostility generated by, and accumulating from a lifetime of "irresponsible" reactions to our parents and subsequent authority figures waits, ever ready to fire us up. 

In the past, though, we were always "the losers" in our tussles with our parents and rellies. Always. They were always bigger and wiser and more all-knowing than we were. In our reality, they still are, until they get so frail that we eventually feel brave enough to treat them like children. But that's the flip side of the same dynamic: we still secretly feel like "losers", towed around by our resentments of them.

But with others, it's different. Now we have grown up. Now we're bigger and older. Unless we absolutely have to, we're not going play "loser" any more; now we're going to play the apparent "winner". We switch from "underdog" mode to "topdog" mode -- the mode we learned from our parents. We become what we've always resisted. And we "do" our parents better than our parents ever did! WE become what we resist.

When an Underdog becomes a Topdog, he becomes a worse topdog than the old one ever was. That is, until we meet a bigger topdog, when we immediately flick back into resentful Underdog mode..... (Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full sir! [I'll get you for this!])

What's more, we think it's normal to be this way. Everyone else is doing it, too.  We hardly know, or consider the possibility of any other way. We've lived so long with it, we think we NEED the anger, the self-pity, the self-importance, the frustration, the resentment and all the other stuff in order to survive! Internally and externally there always seems to be something we need to stand against, to struggle with, to go to war on, to change...

And we wonder why so many of us die of cancer! We even go to war on our cancers.

What's eating you?

GURU WHO-DO?

There's an assumption going around,
Well supported by the Enlightenment Industry
And the India Tourist Office,
That one has a snowball's chance in hell
Of attaining enlightenment
With out a Guru to guide one.

Sitting in the presence of an enlightened one
Is a phenomenal experience, to be sure,
And I'd love to do it again some day --
These guys know some very interesting disciplines to entertain oneself.
But I'm not so sure that it is essential to satori.

"Guru", I'm told, originates from two Sanskrit syllables
Meaning "darkness" and "light",
Thus the word means literally "From darkness to light."
But does it?
What if "guru" could also be translated
"Both darkness and light"?
That would qualify me to have a whack at being my own guru;
You, too.

And it seems to me that many of the masters, living and dead that I've come across
Have said at some stage the equivalent of
"Beware false gurus. You can do it yourself..... What are you waiting for?"

By all means, go to India, or Bali, or Thailand, or Mecca or Rome --
Wherever you fancy;
Lose yourself in chanting and mysticism, 
And drench yourself in incense and satsangs until your blood turns saffron,
But eventually it comes back to
You.
Darkness AND light
Balanced.
GuRu....
One word.
One be-ing.

Uh......

JEALOUSY & ENVY

Jealousy is an insane, irrational emotion that arises from a ground being of "Without you, I am not enough and sufficient for myself, and it's up to you to supply my deficiencies." ]
Who wants to live with that?

Underneath  a blanket of emotions we call Jealousy and Envy,
I have seen.. and felt
Three positions --

1. "You are my property" (arising from Insecurity)
2.  "You have no right."  (arising from Self-Importance)
3.  "You don't deserve" (arising from Lack of Confidence)

Any more......?

AN AFFIRMATION FOR ABUNDANCE

From the lord god of my being.......

I acknowledge that all that is

In and a round me,

Is what I am.

And all that is

Supports me.

There is no lack.

I stand challenged to receive

The support of all that is

For all that I have created myself to be.

So be it....

WHO SHOULD WE CHECK WITH TO FIND OUT?

What is your question?

Is this the right person for me to be going into relationship with?
What's wrong with me?
Am I in the right job?
Why can't I sleep?
What am I afraid/jealous of?
Why does this keep happening to me?
How should I deal with this?

Whatever question you're standing in at the moment,
I'd like to answer you,
Rather than the question,
With a question --

Who should we check with to find that out for you?

Often, when I ask this question,
I meet with a measure of resistance.
One day I wondered why.....
It occurred that, in order to be our own guru
And answer our own questions,
We need to access ALL that we are,
And all that we give to ourselves.
If there are No-Go Zones within --
Emotional, intellectual and spiritual places we just will not go,
Then we're bound to encounter questions
For which we come up empty,
And go looking outside of ourselves,
To others
And to other busy-ness
For our answers.
Such a strategy may be OK for getting an opinion,
But it's not a good recipe for fulfillment or enlightenment!

I create the measure of fulfillment, success, loving, bliss and sufficiency
Out of what kind of entity I feel that I am.
So do you.
If we feel we're coming up short and don't know why,
There's only one place we can go
That will give us the empowering answers we're looking for.y
With-in. y
Answers given by others run a very real danger of being irrelevant, misleading, uninspiring and depressing.
Even the informative and relevant ones can get lost.
And, at their very best, answers from others can only ever inspire us
To look within.

So, let's go back to your question......

• What is your felt sense about it? Your answer will be an experience.
• If you don't have an answer yet, take a guess what they might be (there will always be more than one or two). 
• If your very best friend asked you this question, what would your answers be? Stay open and let them pop: the answers that really matter often don't come up until 'way down the list.

Once we pick up a thought or feeling and give it our attention,
They energise and affect whatever they're focused upon.
If we're getting limited information from within,
It's possible that we're being limited by, or focused on our own perceived shortcomings.
Are you willing to let go of any identifying
With anything you think you are not,
And simply let it lie in a Possible tray?
Are you willing to widen your scope
And embrace, firstly, all the "I Am's" that you know to be true
And put the ones you're less sure about into your Maybe File?
Good.
Now come back to those "I-am-Nots" in your Possibility tray --
Are you willing, at some time, to embrace them, too?
Is that a possibility?
Good.
Just loosen up and allow your field of vision to broaden a bit;
Take all the blinkers off.
Take your reading glasses off
And check out the whole panorama
That contains you and what you're focused in on.

This is the meta-physics of how it works.....
Your attention expands and solidifies wherever it's directed,
And the thought-field attracts everything from the environment to support it.
Which is a poncie way of saying
Whatever we focus upon, we're likely to get more of it.

But we've developed this really annoying habit
Of finding what we don't want, and trying to "fix" it.
Haven't we?
That's where our attention is.
So the universe (which doesn't say "No, you can't have that; it's bad for you.")
Gives you MORE of what you don't want,
And everything to support that.
Which gives rise to a realisation --

We can never seem to get enough

Of what we DON'T want.

When we shift focus OFF what we don't want

And look around us at the existence and availability

Of what we DO want,

There it is. 

It's been there all along

Waiting for us to wake up

And to drop Separation.

All we need do to connect with what we want

Is to drop anything and everything we're carrying

That is separating us from it.

Are you game?

Are you ready to get off the Wheel of Lack?
Really? Are you sure?
(The only reason we sucked onto Lack is because we think there's some juice in it).
Have you had enough Lack?
Good.

Reconnecting with yourself may mean going within to some of those No-Go Zones;

In fact, I can just about guarantee that for you.

Are you willing?

Willingness is all you need, for now.

The day we created Duality,

"I Am" divided into "I-Am-and-I-Am-not"

And "I Have" split up into "I-Have-and-I-Have-not"

(Amongst all other dualities)

"Am Not" and "Have-Not" are mirror illusions we've created

That we're allowed to believe and be right about

So that we can really get what hell feels like.

(Heaven got boring one day, so we came here/now for a bit of entertainment. Don't fret, being human is not forever, nor is it fatal.

You might like to enjoy it while you've got the chance!)

When an "Am-Not" thought arises

Simply acknowledge it as a former guest

Who used to monopolise conversations around the board table of your mind.

Let it be,

And call in a thought that serves you better

To join the conversation.

And remember........

"Missing' is Opportunity in disguise.

LONGING FOR PERFECTION

Do you want things to be better than they are?
Do you want to be better than you are?
Or....
Do you resist betterness
(The obverse side of the same coin)?
Either way, good luck!
I've tried "Better" ways --
Outside of some incremental change
"Better" has led me around in ever-closing circles.
"Better", I've decided, is a figment of one's unkind mind.

Of course, we can see ways for something to be better than it is,
And we can all play our part in Change.
But what if life is not about getting better
But about getting happier?
Well, we were told right from Day#.1.....
"Change will bring happiness",
So we've grown up thinking...
"When this or that changes, I'll be happy."
We even learned very early on to use Unhappiness
As a way of getting others to change something.
As babies, we bunged on an "unhappy" act
To get some changes happening over there with other people,
And it worked (or so we thought),
For a while..........
Then, if we were well-parented, it stopped working.
If we were spoilt, we continued to get away with
Withholding our wellbeing to manipulate, dominate and control.

Either way, we still try it on --
(Don't say that; it'll upset somebody")
(Don't you dare upset me!")

We have a row with our partner in the morning,
Then rock off to work and forget about it,
Cruising through the day,
Our minds on other things.
We ride home at night, walk up to the door, turn the handle
And remember this mornings row.
Suddenly we turn from Mr.Hyde into Feckle Jeckyll.......
Well, how has that been working for you lately?
Any change? Any happier?
No? Me either.
Maybe it's time we both grew up.

I suggest
Our efforts toward change
Ought not blind us to opportunities for Transformation.
Change strives for Perfection;
Transformation is Renewal.

Perfection doesn't have a universal mould;
It isn't even genuine.
Perfection seems more like an imitation
Of someone else's idea
Of what some aspect of life SHOULD look like.

There is, in fact, no such thing as perfection.
"Perfection" is THE state of Is-ness.
It is the way of all be-ing, just as it is,
That you're either tuned into, or you're not.
When we switch from seeing something as "perfect" to be suddenly "imperfect",
Nothing has changed
Other than our perception of the thing.
So, Perfection/Imperfection rests within the "me" -- the perceiver;
It says nothing whatever about the perceived thing itself.

Here's how it looks to me ---
I can try and manipulate people and circumstances
To shape up the way I think they should be,
So that I can feel comfortable.
Well, I've tried that, and it hasn't worked,
And the closest I ever got
Never felt like "perfection" anyway,
Because I knew I'd dominated and controlled to get there.

But I do know the feeling of Perfection --
I've felt it.
As I remember it in the past,
The benediction -- the feeling -- of Perfection always showed up when I wasn't expecting it.

Then I went chasing after it. 

That's when I discovered something --
This feeling I was chasing,
The feeling I was addicted to,
That I call "perfection"
Happened spontaneously
When I felt aligned with things as they are.
Nowadays, I don't have to wait for Perfection -- the feeling --
To descend like a benediction at the whim of chance:
I have found that Perfection is as close to, and as far away from me
As a deep, unconditional "Yes"
To what-is.

Sometimes that's easy;
And sometimes "Yes" IS emotionally still out of my reach.
So I say "Yes" to that.
That helps.

Where are you with "perfection"? 


Perfection is what we are,

And it's hidden
In how we see ourselves
And what we experience ourselves as,
Not in relation to all things
(Because relationship implies separation),
But as inseparable from all things.

That feeling of suchness need not be as rare as we're experiencing.
But we're not going to find it
By striving to make someone or something "better";
Our chance for perfection begins
With making it all OK.
That's the hard bit;
That's why our experiences of Perfection
Are as rare as hens' teeth.

A friend said to me once, not out of despair but in a moment of relieved realisation .....
"You know, I thought when I started on this inner journey
I'd become a better person."
The quest to be better than we are arises,
At least in part,
From a consciousness of Lack --
Something is felt to be missing in what and where we are now.
That Lack-consciousness is, in turn, a product
Of the fundamental mis-take of Separateness;
A perceived gap between "what-I-am" and "what-I-ain't";
The so-called gap between "the way it is", and "the way it ain't",
The chasm we feel between "me" and Existence.
That gap does not, of course, exist.
Whatever we think we are not
Is part of what we are.


Whatever we think is not
Is part of the way it is. 

Light we are
Thought we are
Feeling we are
Worthy we are
For God we are.

- AND -

Darkness we are
Thinking and feeling
Unworthy we are
For God we think and feel we are not --
We are.


When we're entertaining thoughts that "There should be more than this. How do I get?....."
We are coming from a ground being of Lack
And we are perpetuating the Wheel of Insufficiency.
We, in fact, go looking for "missing",
And we find it;
Everywhere we look
We see something "missing".
That is the Law of Seeking --
We will always find what we're looking for;
It's a part of being god.

I've just had a woman come to the door delivering Meals on Wheels.

Now see if you can picture this --

After a cold and wet winter, it's a radiantly soft spring day;

The sun is shining in a clear blue sky,

There's a light breeze stirring the spring blossoms and budding branches ,

And it's a balmy 28 degrees out there.

She remarks "What a nasty day it is!"

I'm flabbergasted. "Nasty?"

"It's nasty and windy!" she vows.

Who am I to argue with her?

She's looking for "nasty" (probably not for the first time in her life)

And she's found it!!

Maybe she's now decided I'm nasty, too

For not chorusing with her.

(We will always find what we're looking for.)

Consider this possibility...
What if we're mistaken about the reality we're in?
What if there's another reality that is available to us
If only we'll give up on our insistence upon Lack and Insufficiency.
What if there is more
That is not actually missing,
Just hidden from us by our own blindness.
What if, when we change our assumptions that our universe is lacking,
We discover things that have been there all along ---
We just couldn't see them.
Sometimes reality is a bit like those wonderful 3-D illusions
That appear at first glance to be a jumble of patterns
But that suddenly become something quite miraculously different
When we get a click-shift of perception.

What if....
There is nothing missing.
What if we're standing in the middle of abundance,
And we have everything we need for now?
What if there is nothing to "work on",
Nothing to get
That we don't already have?
What if, instead, there is just everything to embrace,
Everything that is
Right now?

What if we ARE perfection,
And there is no goal to reach?
Nothing we ought to be that we are not already?

What might you have to give up
In order to allow a Perfection reality through?
What's stopping it?
What is hanging onto that costing you?
Is it worth it?

CHANCE & CHOICE

Every body has their share of ups and downs.
The differences between your life and mine
Are less of chance
Than choice.

My problems are worse than yours!

In a Victim mentality
We sit around like hospital patients
Comparing dis-eases and disasters;
We feed off them,
We get identity from them.
Now that is sick!

THE PRACTICES OF MYSTICISM -v- SPIRITUALITY

The practices of Mysticism are great pastimes,
And have a lot to recommend them
Over stealing cars or conquering countries,
But they are still like taking a shower wearing a raincoat.

All spirituality comes down to this
(And you can get this whether you're wearing a monks' robes or work clobber) ---
To realise what comes and goes
And let it come and go, unhindered......
And watch
Until we recognise what is
Already and always here.

What is that?
We don't know what it is,
But we do know THAT it is.

Be with that
And come from that.

THOUGHTS

Thoughts have magnetic energy;
They come back
To where they are, or once were
Welcome.

SELF-IMAGE

"I" is the centre of the universe
Around which the rest of the world revolves
Once every 24 hours.
Ego declares:
"I" is God in "my" world.

And you are God in yours, too.

Well, we both are god -- more than we realise,
Because our concept of godness
Is limited by ego which thinks of "god"
As some kind of Super-dad on steroids.
What we think of God and of ourselves
Is as much like the real thing
As reading some journalist's review
Of a real, 24-course Chinese banquet.

But what we privately think of our selves (plural intended)
Is really important.
There are some things that may be hidden from your friends,
But cannot be hidden from
The more awareful bits of creation.

Our own deep, unconscious self-appraisal
Seeps and radiates out into our magnetic field
Attracting experiences, opportunities and relationships
That mirror back to us
What "I" thinks of "Me".

The reason we don't readily make that connection
Is that, having separated our selves from our Self,
Having developed a false-self
And put that in charge of running our business
While we skived off into self-imposed exile,
We often have little idea of what's really going on
And of what we are really thinking and feeling.
We barely listen to what we say, to ourselves or to others,
We mis-read the effect we're having,
And we pull up at the end of each day in a bit of a mess.
But we put a lot of that down to "good luck" or "shit happens".
We get stuck on a wheel of repeating (mis)fortunes.
[Why does this keep happening to me?]

As we grow to own, accept and love more of what we are,
And become more aware of the thoughts and feelings that flow on through
We get a growing sense of choice
About what we want to experience,
And a healthy respect for a creative Awareness
That knows just how to put together
What we've put out for.

If we're not getting what we want,
I see two possible reasons:
a) What we say we want, and what we're actually putting out for via our aura may be very much at odds with each other: and
b) There may be some unfinished business or preparatory lessons we need to learn before we qualify for what we want.

Either way, we're being invited to look in available mirrors
And check our self-image.
What mirrors?
The people in front of us. Who else?
And not through what they tell us to our face,
But through what we see in them.
Whatever we see in the person in front of us right now,
Is our own self-image being reflected back to us.

The more genuine our self-honesty,
The closer we get to experiencing
An ultimate truth about how creating works from Self-Image ----

We think it -- it happens.

That's how it is. And it is that fast.

And that powerful!

Victim or victor,

Every last one of us is that powerful.

We are god

Saddled with a self-image,

Just for the hell of it..

The initiating thoughts we get about ourselves

Are limited

Because they're pre-filtered by how we feel about ourselves.

What we think about ourselves comes "true" --

We feel that back into real, confirming experience. 

Whatever we think and feel about ourselves,

Is confirmed. Always. 

We get to be right -- our ego sees to that.

It's utterly futile to sit with a lousy self-image,

Waiting for circumstances to change our minds for us;

That isn't going to happen!!!

If we want to permanently change our experience of anything

We first have to transform how we FEEL about ourselves.

Positive Thinking has nothing to do with it;

This kind of transformation happens out of mind.

You cannot reason your way out of anything

That was not reasoned into in the first place.

Our self-image was felt into existence,

It feeds off self-generated feelings,

And will need to be felt

Into something more useful.

LOSS

What the heart yearns to relinquish
As unnecessary limitation
The ego mourns and rebels against
As theft and loss.
Loss is space..........
With a negative judgment attached.

It is a sign of insanity
To keep doing what we've always done,
Hoping for a different result.
When you're faced with a crisis,
Consider taking the opportunity
To try something you've not done here before ---
Listen to your heart.
Let go.

Despite what the head-lines say
Loss will not kill you.
Look at it this way ----
It creates room for growth....

YES

yes is a world

& in this world of

yes live

(skillfully curled)

all worlds

e e cummings

SPACE

Have you suddenly found yourself
With space?
Maybe you've lost someone or something
That were are large part of your life.
Maybe you're missing someone,
Or something that someone used to bring you....

Don't be in too much of a hurry to fill the gaps.
You might take the opportunity
To do something we don't normally do --
Experience the spaces.

You may feel uncomfortable in those places for a while;
That's good.
Stay with them
Until your discomfort turns to equanimity;
Equanimity will eventually turn into appreciation,
Appreciation will morph into enjoyment.

Then, out of joy,
You can look to share the space
With someone or something else.

ANSWERS

To J........

I don't have the Answer for you
(And neither does anyone else)
For two reasons.......

Firstly, I only have answers that either worked for me yesterday or are working for me today. I offer them freely and willingly to you. If you find any of them relevant, interesting, tasty or nourishing to you, take them and run with them, please.

Secondly, you don't really need answers anyway; you already have your answers in the form of your present experience. All you need do now is remember what the questions were. Then, when you've made the connection, make up some new questions that will lead you where you want to go.

Which leads me to the $64,000 question -- What do you want? Right now? Today? Tomorrow? Next week? In a year's time?......

Hint: Make sure you know what you DO want; it won't work if you aim for an absence of what you don't want.

PRAYER

"Consistently talking to oneself

Without receiving an audible answer,

But thinking you have,

Is classed as "insane"

In all circumstances except religion."

David Nicholls

SACRIFICE

We don't have to sacrifice anything to be in a state of godness;
Godness is how we arrived here.

Don't confuse "godness" with "holiness" --
"Godness" is the state in which we declare "I am...."
And become everything we add after that
So that we can experience it.
We all do it,
Mostly without being aware of it,
Every moment of every day.

"Holiness", by contrast, is an ego trip;
A heightened state of delusion
That results when we take detachment and "rightness" to an absurd extreme
And manage to elude being discovered
To be barking mad.
"Holiness" is also an appellation given to another
In fake humility
By people who won't own their own supreme godness.

Our first mistake as babies
Was to think we had to give up something in order to be happy.
And some of us are still doing it decades later!
But maybe that's because we've never seriously challenged that assumption
That Happiness is something that needs to be somehow acquired or obtained:
It never was,
And still isn't.
There are just some things that we came as,
That we've forgotten we still are at some level of our being,
And always have been.
"Happy" is one of those indelible states of being
We may turn our back on, and lose track of,
But will never be further away from us
Than an "A-Hah!"  of re-cognition.

Here's a dangerous idea --
Sacrifice is not necessary to Godness.
Watch whatever now rushes to address the danger of that idea,
Rather than address the question --
"What if this were true?"
What if Sacrifice was a con-job perpetrated on us
By "holy" creeps who wanted us to stay "less-than"?

I look back on my life and realise
I have (so far) never met anybody who claimed to be sacrificing something
Who also seemed to be ecstatically happy about it;
Quite the contrary......
"Stoic" would be the highest and lightest they've managed to rise..
And those who do appear to me to be happily being-without something
For the good of something- or someone-else,
All swear they're not sacrificing anything.
"Sacrifice" is neither in their vocabulary or their attitude..
I believe them.
I've come to a conclusion
That Happiness and Sacrifice never go together,
And that whether or not we're sacrificing
Must depend on our point of view.
Victims sacrifice out of a scarcity consciousness;
Non-victims share out of abundance.

Sacrifice is a refuge of the "holy";
Godness is the birthright of the Responsible.

Come to think of it --
Whenever I have considered myself to be "sacrificing",
Under a thin veneer of nobility, I've always secretly resented
Both the need to sacrifice
And the ungrateful buggers I've sacrificed myself for.

We're at a crossroads:
Holiness or Godness?

We don't have to give up anything to be happy.

And we have to allow ourselves to embrace everything
To be God.

HOME

Come on home,
Where we just notice and accept the totality of it,
Find ways to creatively engage with it,
And live it in successive moments of Now.
Here is where everlasting, eternal happiness
Begins to dawn
And we are home again
At last.

WILL

The Will of God
Is to be realised,
As and through all of it.

There is no "won't" to this will.

But in man
God allows "won'ts"
Just to make the "will" interesting.

Despite himself,
The Will of Man
Is also to BE
Realising
I am
Right here, right now.

JUDGMENT

Good or bad,
Right or wrong,
Better or worse than...
Every Judgment re-creates an idealised fiction
That is probably unrealistic,
Even if only because it's based on the percieved performance
Of something or someone "else".
Judgments and self-criticisms
Arise from a non-existent absolute
Against which we measure our selves
And categorise others.

The Inner Critic/Judge is the two-faced Janus
We contracted to stand sentry at the gate of our soul,
To keep us "safe" ..............
And imprisoned.
(We didn't bargain on that.)

Just watch,
Observe how the Judge works.
Watch it uncritically in others
And in your self.
Another entity denying or excusing him/her self,
This entity denying or excusing itself.
Notice the effect each sentence, each frown, each "tut-tut" has on you.
Underneath the self-righteousness,
Feel the contractions.

Man judges and pardons,
God allows,
And just watches - unjudgmentally - to see what happens next.

Outside of mere man-mind, I suspect,
There is no judging God,
No avenging angels,
No Judgment Day.
Armageddon is what's happening within
While we waste every day sitting in criticism and judgment.
Stop doing it!
Who do we think we're "correcting"?
Who are we trying to punish?

If you find that you're too late -
You've just judged someone,
Don't judge your self for it.
It's just a habit.
Let it go.
The more often you let it go,
The sooner it will let you go.

Gain the wisdom --
Judging and being judged
Are each inherent in the other;
Not at some later judgment date,
But in this instant.

Resurrection is what happens
When we lift the burdens of judgment, guilt and punishment
And allow the healing of At-one-ment.

I AM........

May thy free will  be done on Earth

As it is in Heaven.

I Am is the miracle I am looking for.

I am God/Thought
Lowered in frequency into Light,
Further lowered into gross matter, gross emotions, gross thinking --
Into all somethings,
Including Flesh/Man.

We are....
The children of That Which Is.

Any thought of "I am not",
Perpetuates an illusion of duality,
Of "Me" and "Not-me".
This ill-usion is where we live,
In a universe of duality.
This duality we're seeped in is both a reality and an illusion,
In much the same way as a dream is real, while we are in it;
But when we wake up.........

Do you have a thought "This is not me?"

OK. But who is having the thought of "Not-me"
"Me"? Of course, me.
"I Am" is over all.

To the degree that I own, love and master
The totality of what I am
Is the degree to which I create Heaven as it is on Earth.
The degree to which I see myself as something "Not",
Is the degree to which I separate from Godness-Gracious-Me
Suffer the duality that only mind can conjure,
And create Hell as it is on Earth.

Our life is our most deeply held thoughts
Mirrored and echoed back to us.
Every thought, every word is a prayer
Shooting forth to create what is
And what is to be in the next moment.

I am
My secret.

The longer I look outside of me
To find something to mirror back what I'd like to think I am,
The longer I perpetuate the illusion
That there is something that I am not.

God is reported to have said
"I am
What I am"
I, too, am what I am.
You are what you are.
What does that make us?
Hmm-mmm-mmm?

MIRRORS

It's all done with mirrors.
"If I can see it, it's my stuff"

But not every one you experience reflects exactly where you are, as you are.
Some may mirror where you have been,
Some may mirror how far you have come,
Some may mirror stuff you aren't finished with yet,
And some may mirror your potential.

It requires discernment,
Of Insight rather than intellect,
And Humility of spirit.

And sometimes it requires patience.
If you do not immediately recognise what's reflected back to you,
Simply put it in the "Pending" tray
And pay attention to what happens next;
Life will deliver an experience that will offer you an "A-hah!"

In the meantime,
Try being grateful for all the mirrors around you.
"All I see is me."

COMFORTABLENESS

Being comfortable is simple;

It means relaxing enough to unconditionally accept What-Is
And experience it without suffering.
If the "What-Is" of now is suffering,
Then don't get bent out of shape about the suffering.
Just let the suffering, or whatever else, be as it is.

Maybe getting comfortable is not always easy,
But it couldn't get any simpler than
"Just this much, for now".

SEX & LOVE

To the extent that we're afraid of sex,
We suppress love.
When we suppress anything,
We suppress love.

When we suppress love,
Something opposite arises.

HEAVEN AND HELL

Qu.:- What if we died already, and this is it?

Heaven and Hell are both fabrications of the divided mind.

Is there heaven (or hell) after death?
I don't know.
But if there is, "I" will never know it
Because our consciousness will have ceased to be.
There will be no "I" to report back,
And no "Me" to report back to.
Death is, amongst other things, deliverance from Ego.

Is there heaven on Earth?
Yes. And Hell, too.
It depends
On which we each choose to create
As a Context for living.

PITY

Pity is not a virtue;
It is one way god-botherers feel good about themselves.
Pity is selfish.
Pity reduces its object
To a state of lesserness, humiliation and suffocation;
And elevates its subject
To a plinth of disengaged "better-than..."

Another way could be,
Out of abundant empathy,
To share your compassion.
Do whatever it takes
To help another help him/herself.
Put the other in charge of his own rehabilitation.
Restore dignity.
Restore self-respect.

GOD or GOD-NESS

....And Godness created Man
In its own like-ness.
Man in turn created "God"
In the image of his ego.

There it is....
The ultimate D.I.Y. slavery,
For whoever or whatever creates
Can destroy that which has been created.

When Man worships a god,
Man puts himself in the power of a man-made despot.
Look at all the madmen  who've ever gone to war in God's name.

Godness, however, has never been created;
From before the dawn of time,
It has always been.

The idea called "God"
Makes slaves of us.
A God has to be worshipped
And obeyed.

In "God-ness" we are the created,
And the creators.
God-ness is not worshipped,
But it can be acknowledged
(or ignored; that's up to you.

Godness is...
What we are,
Waiting to be remembered
When we wake up to ourselves.

Godliness shines forth in integrity --
Nothing missing.

WORSHIP

When we don't feel strong enough
To do what another is doing,
We worship.
Someone, something, an idea..........


Worship keeps us trapped
In our devotion to powerlessness.

TIME

Past, present and future
Are divisions, not of time
But of the mind.

There is only one kind of time ---
Now,
Undivided and eternal.
The past exists only in mind's memories;
The future exists only in mind's imaginings.
Here and now,
Mind cannot be.

When we drop the past,
The future takes care of itself,
For the future is nothing but a modified form
Of what we judge and fantasize our past to have been.

When we drop into the present, even for a moment
We break the nexus between past and future.
We are freed of guilts and regrets (past)
And anxieties and worries (future).
It is hard work commuting between the past (dead)
And the future (unborn) ---
Digging up old graves, and deep holes for new ones
Is hard yakka.

Take a break;
Slip into Now.
Existence knows only one place and time -- Here/Now.
Even when we're distractedly off in the past or future,
We're doing it Here and Now;
Real, actual Life and Bliss are passing us by
While we stare at phantoms.

Here/now there is no suffering.
In order to suffer, we need our mind,
And mind cannot be present.

Herenow is bliss -- the only bliss.
Herenow is power -- the only place of power.
Herenow is the connecting point with all-that-is,
Which is Godliness.

Where does God live?
Here/Now.
Thy will be done
Over all the earth
As it is in Here/Now.