HOW NATURE MAKES OUR DREAMS COME TRUE

"In order to make an apple pie from scratch,

You must first create the universe."

 Carl Sagan

The Power of Being is what we already are.

It came with the moment of conception.

Our ability to manifest is not in question --

Regardless of our levels of intelligence, race culture, creed, state of health or station in life
You and I are manifesting machines,
Creating our experiences every microsecond of the day and night.
The questions are --
What are we manifesting?
Are our manifestations making us happy?
If not, why don't we do something about it?


The process of creating begins with.........

DESIRE


Desire is the mind's mechanism for starting action;
(e.g. I have a desire for a glass of water.
If that desire is strong enough to overcome the inertia of what I'm currently doing,
I will change tack and get one.)
If the inertia of what's already happening is stronger than the desire,
Status quo will prevail.

Desire is the motivating impulse of everyday life.
Our minds being what they are, however,
Two interferences interrupt the free-flow of Desire --
The first is that our minds cannot live comfortably with Desire for its own sake;
Mind demands gratification, the more immediate the better.
(If you doubt this, close your eyes and become aware of the surface of your skin. Wait. Sooner or later, an itch will arise, and you will want to scratch it. Say "No" to that urge. Keep on saying "No" and watch the antics you mind goes through, and what it does to you to make you scratch! Very revealing....)
The second problem your mind has with Desire is that it translates and proliferates it into a plague of interconnecting and (sometimes) conflicting Impulses,
Which mind manages by sorting them into a rubbery scale of Preferences.
This scale of Preferences swaps and changes,
Depending on what the opportunistic Mind considers most important to its survival at that moment.

We get trapped within our desires
When mind-generated Preferences deteriorate into Addictions.

ADDICTIONS


Ken Keyes concluded in devastatingly simple fashion --

Addictions are the only cause of suffering.

How's that for a bottom line!
Look at it.
We are all (no exceptions) addictive
In some area of our life.
The only difference between me and a junkie in the gutter
Is a few degrees of dysfunction.
The same goes for you.
Any level of emotional discomfort or suffering is a sign
That there's an addiction or two running,
And we have a choice right there and then --
Either meet them, or withdraw.

We all know what addiction feels like,
And "freedom" isn't part of it.
Freedom gets deposed by Dependence.

Addictions are compulsive, emotionally-driven distortions
Of the natural flow of Desire.
They are a legitimate human need --
That has been unhealthily misplaced and gone feral.
They are self-defeating.
Because of their misplacement,
They will never get the sufferer what he/she really wants
Or even enough of what he/she doesn't want.
With an addiction
There's no way you can win.

Old habits cling to old, out-of-date perceptions of reality.
Any addiction (regardless of its focus) drives a deep conflict
Between maintaining an old-habit condition of believing, thinking and feeling,
And the natural urge to be free.
Addictions get us our own individual version
Of the reverse-opposite of freedom.

Addictions permit us to fleetingly enjoy something
And concomitantly pervert that pleasure
With Guilt.
Being addicted to anyone or anything, internal or external,
Guarantees that any possible pleasure we get
Will turn compulsive,
Will be furtive and fleeting,
And quickly riddled by cancerous guilt.

Any gratification brought by an addictive behaviour
Is a poor substitute
For the authentic, natural pleasure
That it replaced.
Addictive gratifications
Have a built-in Dissatisfaction Guarantee --
You can never get enough
Of what you never wanted in the first place.

When our innate, human hunger for adventure, exploration and risk-taking,
Gets blocked and paralysed by a fear of danger,
Addiction is an unhealthy, destructive alternative.
We head into addiction out of some desperation
Because we've given up on getting our real needs met.
The focus of each of our addictions (e.g. drugs or behaviour of dependence)
Is a fake stopgap for some legitimate, real desire,
A worthy quality of living that we've quit on.

As addicts, we are jumping from the frying pan into the fire,
Trying to escape some aspect of life
That appears not to be meeting our needs,
And running directly into the jaws of a horrible death.
Addiction is disillusionment and laziness of will
Taken to the absurd.

In any addiction
We are trying to get, by manipulation,
Something that only substitutes for what you really want.
That's hardly a healthy or effective recipe for satisfaction!

There are no universally right or wrong rules about addiction,
But here are some assumptions that do work for effectively assisting ourslves :-

• Addiction is a way of coping with a self and the world that don't seem to be working.
• Addiction stems from other life problems.
• Addictions can be outgrown by the host.
• Getting free of the clutching of addiction requires ruthless willingness, self-awareness, new coping skills, and a change of environment. Anything less? You're wasting your time.
• Addiction is not an on/off thing. All of us are addicted, more or less in different areas. Healing begins with sliding our addiction along the scale from "high" towards "low".
• Identify problems and strategies that work for you -- that slide you to a healthier, less entrapping way of satisfying your deepest needs.
• Your best models are people without your type of addiction.
• Your healthiest social supports are work, family and friends -- not other addicts. The last thing an addict needs is sympathy. Find ruthlessly un-sympathetic supporters who can tell the difference between when they're talking to you, and when your addiction has got the microphone.
• Getting better is not a result of believing in a dogma; it involves changing your self-destructive behaviour.
• If you're self-honest enough, you can develop your own power to free yourself. If you wait for divine intervention, or a saviour, you may not live long enough. Any and all addictions can kill you.
• All addiction is the same.

How do we slide into an addiction?

Firstly, let's get a basic given of being human clear -- the human mind is compulsively predictive, and it cannot tell when it's forecasts are wrong. We cannot help but think in terms of patterns. Even when we're told that things happen entirely randomly (e.g. numbers in a lottery), our innate need to create patterns out of chaos ensures that we look for, and create, patterns where they do not exist, and forge expectations of life, ourselves and others on the basis of those un-real patterns.
Our predictive minds also create laws about the way things and people "should" be, taking no account of the overriding principle of Evolution which acknowledges that the breaking of patterns is an essential and inescapable part of the game.
When our pattern-matching is inappropriate, our expectations become unrealistic, but our minds cannot tell the difference.
Now by way of illustrating what I mean, here's, a simplified example of how addiction happens......

Let's say, for example, that I am harbouring a desire for emotional connection. I want comfort. Something quite random and utterly unconnected happens while I am emotionally raw that gives me a sudden "high" -- gratification (e.g. binge eating). It's not what I was looking for, but my ego grabs onto the energetic arousal state, says "That'll do me thank you!", and creates an immediate, primitive, illogical, (false) pattern -- "If I do this, I feel much better." And so I forget what it was I was really desiring, and keep on binge eating in order to feel better.

The problems with this are, of course --

1. All "highs" are biologically designed to be temporary (fight, freeze or flight), but the patterning mind has already set up an expectation that "if I keep on doing this the euphoria will continue."The primitive patterning truimphs over any rational thinking emanating from areas of our brain that are  higher up the evolutionary chain.
2. My body develops a tolerance to binge eating so, in order to get the same effect, I have to eat more and sweeter on each subsequent binge.
3. Eventually, my body will suffer from the chronic onslaught of the addictive behaviour (obesity, diabetes, heart disease, blood pressure, cholesterol and stroke). My psyche will suffer from the still unattended-to need for connection ( chronic anxiety, depression, social dysfunction and, maybe, psychosis).

Addiction is an unhealthy manifestation of the Law -- We act to get our needs met, or because what we're doing appears to us to meet one or more of our needs.

OUR BASIC NEEDS

You and I have the same basic human needs. 

We're highly unlikely to experience our dreams coming true until we first ensure that our most basic human needs are met.

PHYSICAL

• Wholesome diet
• Regular exercise
• Restorative sleep
• Shelter
• Security

EMOTIONAL

• Life & growth
• Love, intimacy & connection
• Challenge & exploration
• Significance & meaning
• Mastery & autonomy
• The exercise of choice to determine action

In a well-balanced life, a reasonable amount of natural reward and accomplishment are felt every day. But in a life where significant physical and emotional needs are not met, the focus of our attention fixes onto what Is-Not, and the rewards are not experienced, and life feels flat and meaningless, devoid of anything worth getting out of bed for. This is where addiction comes in -- we create addiction to supply us with alternative motivation (craving) and reward (gratification). For five seconds it's an aliveness of sorts, but it doesn't work; we soon spiral downward into states of being far worse than where we started.

Here's the bottom line to address an addiction.......

What do I really want?

What needs do I have that are not being met?
How is what I am doing here diverting me?

We will find, as we stand committed to those questions,

That the qualities that we find missing in our life

Are qualities that we once had,
That we have not yet acknowledged still exist,

Nor have we made any serious attempt to give them to ourself.

That's why we get addicted to getting something else

From someone or something else
That just cannot deliver what we're really looking for.

Here's where we can begin to help ourselves turn this around --

It you're like me, and you are,

We spend a lot of time each day listening to the carping of our Inner Critic

On all our shortcomings and what we're doing wrong,

And not much balancing is given to catching our self getting something right.

It is a fundamental requirement to healing an addictive condition

That we set ourselves achievable tasks each day.
That we take the time to feel good about doing them,

And that we notice, acknowledge and healthily reward ourselves

For everything we manage to accomplish,

No matter how big or small.

When I was coming out of the anaesthetic a few weeks ago,
About all I could manage for a while was a smile or kind word

For someone looking after me.
It took effort to do that.

That was enough, however, to lift my spirits

And hasten the healing process.

When you've had enough of being your own worst critic,
Become your own best mentor.

Being your own best friend

Can generate miraculous results.

PLEASURE

Pleasure is a here-and-now state of feeling joy;
Pleasure is with-in whatever leaves us feeling satisfied.
Pleasure gives all who become aware of it a sense of enoughness,
Without any hankering after-taste for more, better or different.
Pleasure is something you're not likely to find on any hunting expedition,
Because it is inherent in this moment.

What exposes pleasure to us is highly individual,

And worth becoming aware of.

Then we can consciously look around for other possible triggers of pleasure

And expand the repertoire of "Things that in-spire my spirit".

Such an exploration may also open up areas where we have long-ago programmed ourselves

To confuse deep pleasure with epidermal gratification,

And settle for the latter,

Creating chronic, creeping dissatisfaction.

We can learn to recognise the difference.

We'll probably also stumble across ways in which
We manage to feel bad about feeling good,

Ways in which we compulsively mix feeling good (pleasure)

With feelings of shame, anxiety, embarrassment and guilt.

Our natural nostalgia for pure pleasure
Lies behind every addiction.
We're hearing echoes of a very deep, legitimate calling of the soul.
Our ego promises that the "feel-goods" it delivers will fill the bill;
They turn out to be hollow and ashen.

In-the-moment pleasure,
Unadulterated by accompanying thinking-about, feeling-about, believing-about,
Or by any urge to silver-box it for later emotional cud-chewing,
Does not have to be created:
Pleasure already exists,
In this moment..
And this moment....
And this one, too....
Waiting to be re-discovered.

If you cannot find pure pleasure here and now,
You won't find it anywhere else.
You may get an occasional goosing of amusement, gratification, or indulgence,
But nothing much emotionally nutritional,
And nothing ever lasting

All our lives are legitimately driven by the spur of Desire,
But because of the intervention of the insatiable ego/mind,
We hardly ever find feel-good moments
That are not tainted somehow
By hidden guilts, fears and nostalgic comparisons
With impossibly inaccurate expectations.

In all of our searches for pleasure
We are ambushed
By a misconception about ourself......
We come from an erroneous assumption that we are our Minds,
And whatever our Mind tells us "I am...."

Inside Mind, we are split into conflicting fragments,
Locked into an internal war
That originates from the self-made struggle between Guilt and Pleasure.
It is this mortal combat that gets acted out
In every one of our addictive wants and habits.
In truth, of course, we are not our minds at all,
(Any more than we are our car-keys.)
Mind and its stuff are something that we have,
That's all.

There is only one Self within
And we do not have to jump aboard and indentify with
Any conflicting fragments.

It is this mistaken, limited  assumption of who we are
That hooks us in a cyclic trap --
We will never, ever get enough pleasure to overwhelm our guilt,
And we cannot suffer enough guilt
To keep us from wanting another "fix" of amusement or gratification.
We get addicted to addiction.
The two impulses of Guilt and Pleasure circle each other
In an endless dance
With no apparent way out;
The door is locked,
And the key is on the outside,
Out of sight and out of reach.

***************

There is, however, a way out --
And it is Conscious Awareness.
Yes, it is that simple.
Become aware,
Acknowledge all the possibilities that occur to you in what is so
And stand in each possibility that beckons you.
Don't accept any warning "Impossible" comment from your mind;
Your mind isn't an exit to anywhere;
It's your mind that has you trapped
With its kind of limited and limiting thinking.

Conscious Awareness IS whole,
And is therefore its own healer.

One of the reasons that Guilt is so popular
Is that it feeds our addiction to sensation;
It spices up an otherwise bland situation.
But it also stops us from accessing the higher pleasure
Of conscious awareness.
Pure awareness is guilt-free.

Are you looking for Happiness and Satisfaction?
Good.
Do you want to know whee to find it?
Good.
Go back you where you started.
Happiness and Satisafaction are a space of being that you come from,
Not a destination to get to.
There's a Law of Life that John Denver articulated beautifully --
"Where you come from is where you're going to."
If you come from a place of Dissatisfaction,
(Even if you're looking for Satisfaction)
Dis-satisfaction is where you'll end up.
It's a paradox --
If you want to get to Satisfaction, you have to find something here and now to be satisfied with
And start from there.
Wherever you look to escape from your present feelings of dissatisfaction --
The next job, another partner, the next cigarette, another drink
Are not going to do it for you;
Whatever begins in dissatisfaction will end in dissatisfaction.

OUR LEVEL OF CONTENTMENT

You and I each have an inner Level of Contentment,
A level that we have each unconsciously set for our self.
It acts like a thermostat,
Regulating how we experience what-is,
And the level of comfort/resistance we attach to it.
We will only receive the level of contentment
We "think" we're entitled to.
(I say "think" but we don't, in fact, think about it at all --
It thinks us, and we react robotically to this thermostat we didn't even realise until just now.)

Our pre-set Level of Contentment determines how much desire will be accepted as "Fulfilled"
And returned in gratitude to the source,
And how much will be ejected as "Unfulfilled" into the atmosphere.
We each emit high levels of Dissatisfaction and Unfulfillment.
Now that's pollution!

We can, however, clean up our act quite considerably
By going another step beyond our limiting Level of Contentment --

We can find that space of being we each carry inside

That, beyond any attempt to justify the situation,

Is simply OK with whatever is happening.

In this state of Contentment

The flow of Desire will arise and return
Unimpeded.

The degree to which we are effective in this world
Does not depend on the attitude of others;
It depends more on our own internal, (usually unconscious) evaluations
Of how much Desire has been fulfilled,
And the level of gratitude we feel about that.

The whole point of Desire

Is to allow the Self

To become what it desires

And rejoice in its creations

(And in itself.)

This natural process went off the rails for all of us

When ego was allowed to usurp the title and function of Self.

But that's OK, too;

That derailment gives us the actual experience/opportunity

To discover the difference

Between ego (false self), and true self.

A quick word about "success" --
(More than the topic deserves)........
Moments of success are fabrications of the ego --

Moments to enjoy, for sure,
But neither real nor lasting.

No wonder they need continual reinforcement,

In a quest for lasting satisfaction that they will never deliver.
If you want to get a good look at "success-a-holics" in action,
Any episode of "The Apprentice" should put you off for life.
Got it? Good. Let's move on.....

TRUE SELF

True Self can, and does, rejoice in itself,

Always,

For Self is both the source and the goal

Of all true satisfaction.

All that we need to do

Is become aware of, and tap into

This perpetual bliss of Self realising itSelf.

In this awareness we begin to sense the perfection of every now moment,
And rejoice in it.

Whatever is happening for you right now

Is part of a process of Self BECOMING its desire,

Through "you",

For the sheer pleasure of becoming more than it was a moment ago,

As a result of this experience.

DREAMS COME TRUE

All of life's a circle.....

Desire flows from Self, through not-Self, and back to Self --

Awareness flows from itself, through non-awareness, to Awareness.

The amount of natural joy experienced during the cycle

Is inversely proportional to the amount of obstruction (addiction) encountered along the way;
The more addiction, the less enjoyment,
Less addiction -- more enjoyment.

Where there is no obstruction,

There is no journey, no circle, from Self to Self...

The Desire IS the fulfillment.

And there is Satisfaction at every step along the way.

Fulfillment is already inherent in the desire,

If only "I" would get out of the way.

The experience of Dissatisfaction is an indication

That we have forgotten the Law of self-fulfilling Desire/Satisfaction,

And have bought our Ego's promise to create its own, more tantalising desires and make them happen,

Like politicians at election time.

Dissatisfaction indicates that an addiction or three have infected the process,

Distracting you,

Pointing you outside of your here/now/self,

To someone, sometime, or something "else"

For the experience of satisfaction.

When we encounter a chronic feeling of dissatisfaction, lack, "missing", "This ain't it", or emptiness,

We get trapped in dissatisfied Neediness --

Nothing more or less than the discomfort of separation

Of natural Desire from Satisfaction; and

Our ego from our true self.

Any fixation on external agents or circumstances

To fulfill us in any way,

Takes us out of Source,

And diverts the direction of Desire

Away from us.

If you want something from someone or something outside of you

You're fucked.

The Power of Desire

Desire arises naturally.

Left to the natural flow of things,

Desire carries within itself the seeds and wherewithal of its own fulfillment.

We may choose to do some cultivating and weeding along the way,

Just to help nature along....

But seeds are designed to flower.

That's it.

But our addictions to, say, a particular outcome

Can block the creative abundance of nature.

Without addictions to an imagined outcome,

All desires come true. 

The flowering may be surprising,

(A sign that we possibly mistook what it was we were actually sowing)

But a flowering of what was sown is assured.

It is a cultural bias, a social mind-set

That decrees that a wish that comes true "out there"

Is any more real, or even any different,

Than a wish that comes true "in here".
That crap only becomes true when you believe it!

Look.....

While you are dreaming, what you are dreaming is real.

When you wake up, you say "Huh! It was only a dream".

Perhaps........
Perhaps this here/now is not our "awake" state after all......

Perhaps we are dreaming,

And we need to wake up and realise --

There is no genuine, lasting satisfaction 
Outside of your experience of it.
When, and under what circumstances you choose to feel satisfied
Is up to you, and you alone.

In consciousness,

All desires are actualised

Every step along the way.
If something actual in front of you is puzzling you,
Try asking your self "Why might I want this?"
And be present for the answers that enhance your insight and learning.

If we could really get a handle on this, three things would happen --

1. We'd realise that, in the very act of desiring, there is ample room for us to be satisfied.
2. Having tuned in to that satisfaction,  external outcomes are interesting, but don't matter, one way or another.
3. In letting go of our addiction to a desire being manifested "out there", we create enough space for it, or something better, to materialise "out there".

Look, three months ago I'd just had my body cut open six ways from Sunday, my heart stopped for over 4 hours, and major replumbing done. When I woke up, it would be a dainty understatement to say I wasn't feeling too flash. Sometime after they let me breathe on my own again, and before I got many of my marbles back, I got the "hots" for one particular nurse. Far from wanting to bonk her, however, I was ecstatic to discover I could still have the desire and, for the first time in my life, I enjoyed sexual desire for its own sake!! A crude example, but when you get that low on the survival scale, the oddest things get transformingly simple.

We turn, in vain, to ego/mind for our itches to be scratched -- pronto!
Because we're afraid to be with Desire for long enough to experience it and enjoy it.
We bought a belief in "I might miss out";
We bought a belief that we are inside, and the victim of
A restricted and restrictive universe.
We equate Desire with not-having,
And never stay with it  for long enough to get to experience Desire
As the gateway to Abundance.

I challenge you now to entertain another possibility --
That an abundant universe exists also within each and every one of us ,
And that we are the creators of that world.
Whether our world is impoverished or abundant
Is entirely of our own making.
Just as we are the designers, creators and lawmakers
Of all our other realities,
We manifest what we expect to be.....

We cannot realistically expect the universe to be generous with us
While our heads and dreads are full of limiting beliefs in Loss and Lack, Jealousy and Competition;
Creation does not work that way.
Existence does not argue with us --
It supports us.
Whatever and however we create life to be,
Life lets us be right.

I'll try to put this another way......
There is no difference between a tree in our dreams
And a tree "out there":
Both are just as real
And both exist in the same place --
In our experience.
At higher levels of manifesting,
Whatever you want
Exists nowhere but in you.
Manifesting begins and ends with how you feel about yourself:
When you feel like shit, you manifest shit -
When you feel alive and free, you manifest unlimited aliveness.

The world -- your world

Is as you are

And as you expect it to be.

There is no difference,

No separation.

You cannot hide what you're thinking and feeling at your deepest core from existence,

It takes you at your own deepest, most secret word.

We all get what we secretly think we deserve.

If you're experiencing short shrift on the goodies of life,

It's time to look honestly within,

And listen attentively to your own self-talk.

There is nothing outside of you

That is not reflecting very accurately,

What is inside of you.

Every moment of every day

We are transforming Pure Awareness

Into physical, mental and emotional being.

We do this by feeling into Desire

And we BECOME it through feeling.

But we don't realise that.
We mostly stumble through each day

Only vaguely aware of our dominating desires

And even less aware of this process.

Then we pretend to be unpleasantly surprised at the results we get

And blame anyone and everything for our dissatisfaction.

Two Ruthless Rules of Reality apply perversely in this condition --

1. We always get what we put out for; and
2. We cannot seem to get enough of what we've tried to convince ourselves we don't want.

The natural process of Manifesting Desire is like Sunday Soil
That does not distinguish between nutritious crops and thistles;
It grows whatever is sown.

If you've read this far,
Maybe it's your time to wake up;
Time to become aware of the self-limiting beliefs,
The damaging, disparaging self-talk,
And the negative self-images
With which you are sabotaging yourself.
You think whatever is hidden can do no harm?
Think again.
There is an awareness "from whom no secrets are hid"
Which takes you at your word
And manifests it.
That's how it works --
For you, or against you?
Well, that up to you, isn't it?

You can make your dreams come true --
You are doing it all the time.
The process is working just fine;
It's the programming that you're feeding into it that is at fault.

Now that you are more aware,
The laws of manifesting can now work for you--
Your true desires will begin to see the light of day.
Drop your addictions to "outcome" --
Expectations kill creativity.
Without limitations and interference,
Your true desires must come true.
That's how the universe happened:
That's how you got here.
Join in.

SURRENDER TO FREEDOM

There is a paradox
That flies in the face of all our old beliefs about Freedom --

To be free

We must drop every resistance,

Relinquish every control,

And surrender unconditionally

To what-is.

Freedom = Surrender???
Freedom is an unconditional state of being,

Independent of all circumstances.
It doesn't matter where you live, under what regimes,
Or what your physical, emotional or spiritual givens are,
You can still be free.
And if you haven't got that kind of freedom --
The kind that exists independently of what others do to you,
You are not free
In any circumstances.
But what the hell --
The only person you're kidding is you.

Freedom is the state of being unconditional,

In which unfathomable mysteries , the un-knowable and as yet-unknown possibilities

Are willingly entered 

As escape hatches from everything that self-limits and suppresses.

Freedom allows and uses structure,
But is not welded to it.

Freedom plays creatively with agendas, rules, goals, expectations,

And drops them when they start to pinch.

Freedom is a radiant, flowing, flowering present-ness.

Freedom delights in surprise, sees possibilities in not-knowing

And commits to fully go wherever the flow may take us.

TRUST

For this, we need Trust.
Trust is an energy organiser.
At a time of crisis, when no rational, logical thinking
Will sustain an illusion of stability or security,
Trust provides self-integrity,
A way of keeping it all together.
If you feel your life is falling apart,
It may be a symptom of Trust Deprivation.
Trust is not quite the same as "faith",
Where the spiritual glue is sought
From outside of one's self;
Nor is it "hope",
Where there is a reaching for something not-yet,
Rather than a resting in something we already have
But may have forgotten about, or have yet to experience.

Trust is a latent inner resource,
A pre-existing knowing from deep within
That the process of life is designed to work,
That there is another knowing that is greater than ours,
That there are dimensions outside of our human senses that we just do not know about,
That the survival of who we truly are is not, never was, and never will be an issue,
And that sometimes we just have to take our hands off the wheel
And let this life take us wherever it's going.

There is no freedom without trust.
Without trust we are tied to limiting considerations.

Knowing what I think I know,
Can I let go of this awareness
And drop into the void of what I have not yet seen,
Not yet heard,
In order to get a sense of the energy that orchestrates all that is?
Can I forsake all quests for security, power and sensation
And surrender to nothing,
With no guarrantees, and on no evidence whatsoever
Knowing that, without this level of total surrender,
I will never get to experience
Unconditional love and support?


I have done it,
And I'm still here to tell the tale,
And to let you know,
That until you've died this death,
You have no idea what life could be for you.

This is the divine space of freedom
Where nothing is fixed
And everything is possible....
And then you get on with being human
And all that that means.
But it's not the same any more.....

Trust and release must be total;
Even the slightest hanging-on to the old and familiar
Will short-circuit the process.
Every attachment to all old relationships and patterns must be reliquished
Before anything will re-solve and reform.
That doesn't mean we have to give everything and everyone up;
It means we have to let go our attachment to them.
Even the slightest attachment
(And resistance is an attachment)
Will block our awakening.
It's all,or nothing.

In the past we have looked at and experienced our situation
From a theoretical ideal of "normality".
We compare what's going on with us to what we consider ought to be.
This new journey starts from a different place;
It begins from an open acceptance of where we actually are.
Rather than resist,
We can choose to welcome whatever feelings of disturbance, contraction, judgment, uncomfortableness or pain
As openings to transformation
And new viewpoints from which to observe and reflect on the nature of Balance, Fluidity, Rigidity, Openness, Closedness, and Unconditionality. When we intellectually and emotionally look at things from a different perspective, we see things we couldn't see before. This is the secret key to the door of transformation.

In this state, notions of Right and Wrong, Good and Bad, Better and Worse, Should and Should-Not evaporate into irrelevance. There is only the gift of What-Is, so that you can see your consciousness in action, and the level at which it has been nesting, from another point of view.

Once you see it, your experience -- past and present -- can be surrendered to, and allowed to integrate into the growing tapestry of your life. To use another (sound) analogy, songs sung in unison have a certain appeal and power for a short time, but harmony is richer, fuller and a lot more interesting. New rhythms and harmonics add to the richness of experience, if only we can drop our fear of them. We have discord in our lives because of the dynamics we reject, dynamics that would integrate themselves in ways that our tiny minds cannot begin to predict. From such integrating you will experience new levels of openness, balance, gratitude, and a renewed sense of adventure and freedom.

Surrender is the key; there's no way around it. You can delay it for as long as your whole life, but you didn't get in here, and you won't get out again without surrendering. There is nothing "wrong" in your life. Your present discomforts do not have to be worked on. You could try hugging them instead. Have them, feel them, get to know them in experience, so that the wisdom you gain can flow back to the Source blessed, enriched and enlightened by your availability to it all.

There's a good reason why mothers about to give birth don't pack a lunch and rucksack for their offspring, just in case. It is easier for a baby to pass through the birth canal than it is for an adult to trust and surrender. Yet that's what is required -- a total surrender of EVERY attachment -- emotional, intellectual, physical, idealogical, image-inary.... the slightest whiff of identification anywhere, and it's lights-out across the board for Freedom.

Trust and Surrender are the womb of freedom. They provide the space, nourishment and environment you need for your transforming being. There is space in the re-birthing process for logic and reason, and what you've learned so far, just as certain vitamins and minerals enhance your well-being and enrich your growth. But these "extras", and any others you may need, will be provided as required along the way. Don't try to bring them as carry-on luggage -- you won't make it. Trust and surrender don't take up any space, don't add any weight, and are all you need for this journey. And you may need to reach into them many times along the way.

LET-GO: THE LEAP THROUGH FEAR

The usual approach to growth is to acquire and practice techniques and skills to fix or change things in our circumstances and personalities that keep us stuck. And there is no shortage of very highly "qualified" experts who'll take your money on a promise to make life better for you.

The approach is reasonable, but not intelligent. We are focussing our attention and energy (the two most creative forces we possess) onto the limiting circumstances and personal traits, the "what's-wrong". In so doing, we are empowering whatever it is that is keeping us stuck. What we fight, we fortify (globally and personally). Whatever we let be, lets us be. This is the Law of Polar Opposites. Regardless of what we may have decided to try out since, we were not born to become saints: we were born to complete the experience
of being what we are.And what we are has always been, is now, and ever shall be.... our choice.

Discarding stuff that no longer works for us is always an option (attractive to some, and too scary to contemplate for others). But there is no demand from life that we enslave ourselves to a cure for what we are and a quest to seize and occupy what we aren't. If you go to war on life as it is -- expect a bumpy ride!

We've tried struggling to get free of stuckness. Reasonable. Logical. But how well has that worked for you? Me either. Maybe it's time to try something un-reasonable and illogical for a change. Acknowledging, allowing and surrendering to whatever has got us by the nose frees us to deal more creatively with it. At the same time we're freed to live through that experience without all the internally generated suffering and "hardhship" that goes with every resistance. From here onward, would you rather do this hard, or easy? I can't answer for you, but having done both "hard"and "easy", I know where my feet vote.

The fear we most need to fear is that which induces paralysis at the point of letting go deeply. Trust is the only sure-fire antidote for emotional paralysis that I'm aware of. Our minds call up distracting wrestling matches with others, our circumstances, personality issues and health problems (Physical, mental, spiritual and emotional), but none of these is the real issue. Our ego/minds raise them to divert us from engaging directly with the Awakening Force, that cosmic imperative that draws us to expand into apparent chaos, formlessness and not-knowing. We can find ourselves in turmoil, caught between a panic urge on one hand to do anything that will take away these dread-full feelings, and on the other -- Alice's formless rabbit-hole where there is nothing to do but step across the threshold and let go.

I have found - so far - that the void we step into is always a tunnel. I also know from Depression that, without trust, the other end eludes me. With trust engaged, though, although I often cannot see the other end, sometimes for what seems like an eternity, I do break out into sunshine eventually. But I think we have to create/trust  that the other end of the tunnel exists, otherwise I suspect we'll never find it.

Rather like a train trip I once took along the Brenner Pass through the Alps between Italy and Austria, each emergence from a tunnel plunges me into a stunning vista of ever-more-brilliant sunshine. The trick is to enjoy these places, too, but not prop there: allow the journey to take me into the next tunnel, and the next, and the next...... all in its own good time.

Whether or not we succumb to paralysis or rocket off into transformation depends on the way we choose to relate to our fears. Do we choose to be scared of our fears, repress them, ignore them, try to control them? Or do we look for ways to use the energy of our fears creatively?

I find fear logically unresolvable, for a very sound reason. You and I did not reason our way into our fears -- we got here emotionally. We have to back out the same way we came in. Reason is not a valid or effective tool for working on the Un-reasonable. Regardless of what our mind promises us, we cannot reason our way out of anything that was not reasoned into in the first place. We can take that to the bank.

Next time it comes up, feel into the feeling you call "fear". Doesn't it remind you of another feeling you're familiar with -- excitement? Aliveness? Isn't this "fear" thing just a negative label you've stuck onto a feeling that could be exhilarating if you didn't judge it? (I could be enjoying this, if I didn't feel this way about it!) Relax around this feeling. Sense it's energy. Would you rather be feeling this energy, or be dead?  Hmmmmmmmm? If you'd rather be dead -- fine: you will be. Numbness has already set in. I wish you well, but I cannot come with you just yet.

For the adventurous of spirit, fears rank among the true gifts of life. They act as beacons toward discovery and growth. How we respond to them has a direct influence on how much life we will experience. If you're one  who avoids scary situations, congratulations! You've found a sure way to live "safe" -- until just before you die, when you will plunge headlong into fear without the benefit of any rehearsal. Then you'll die, and we'll all stand around at your funeral and secretly wonder why the hell you bothered living.

When we project our fears outwards we generate a need for more and more assurances of security to counter an ever-growing number of perceived threats. We grab for partners and "soul mates" -- thinly disguised saviour-substitutes for our long dead Mummies and Daddies. We look pleadingly for someone to guess what we really want because we either haven't got a clue, or we do but we're not going to say what that is because anyone who cared ought to be able to guess! We fill the air with inane chatter about nothing, deathly afraid  of silence and peace. We "do" hangdog and forlorn martyr impersonations to con our families into looking after us in our old age. We nag and nitpick those we love, too fearful to just say "I love you", and let it rest at that. We hang out a shingle for someone -- anyone -- to tell us what to do, what to invest in, where to live, and when we get shafted, we go on "A Current Affair" or Lifeline and bleat our pathetic little tales. We just want to be tucked up in bed, cuddled, assured that our growing dreads are not life-threatening, and suckled by the public teat. In the meantime, we want the continuing comfort of staying exactly as we are, and all else around us to either remain nicely unchanged, or shape up, or go back to the way we think we remember it used to be.

None of this works. And life doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to end in a whimper!

I'm honestly thinking of writing another book and calling it "I Didn't Think it would End This Way." It'll be about growing up when we're supposed to, and learning to deal creatively with fear.

The turnaround begins with seeing our fears as messages. Something deep inside is telling us:

1. There is something limiting that is grabbing at our shirt tails; and
2. It is time to get that this life and this death are one and the same process; and
3. It's time to let go unconditionally into the whole of our self.

One of the most frightening things about these ego-induced death-like feelings against dissolving into chaos 

Is not their finality,

But the awesome incomprehensibility

Of their being-born-again potential.

Set mind is about to get one helluva shakeup, and it doesn't like that one bit. Your ego/mind's own survival is more important to it than your life. 

I know this, because I have an ego, too.
A big one.

Outside of mind, there is nothing to fear. The process of living is what it is. Feeling elated about, or threatened by that is something quite separate that we overlay, and it helps a great deal, I find, when we distinguish quite clearly between -- a) What is; and b) How we feel about it.

There's nothing fundamentally right or wrong about what-is. Beyond an opportunity for experience, there's no fundamental "reason" for what-is, nor is it going anywhere in particular, any more than the Earth, the sun and the galaxies have any destination in space. There is no "better life" to follow this one, nor any standard you ought to attain before you move on. There is, however, a deepening appreciation of your freedom, available in this incarnation, to relate as you wish to the unfolding events of your day, and the flow of energy that animates it all.

I don't write this stuff out of any parent/child sense of "This is what you have to be doing", but out of a being of "If you feel lost, this is what I've found. If it appeals to you, make it yours. If it works, tell me. If it doesn't, find something else that does."

If you demand something very specific from life, other than what you're getting, and you're not willing to go through what you're getting, you're fucked. How many times will you hit the wall before you get that? 

Other than what you make up for yourself, 

There is no point to life; life itself IS the point.

There's the doorway to Freedom. Was that what you were looking for? No? No wonder you didn't find it yet. Whether you break free of yourself or drift deeper and deeper into permanent paralysis will depend on:

• Your willingness to explore, without restraint, both inwardly and outwardly;
• The level of your sensitivity to the ways you let your mind define and control your experience (definition, limitation and control are the antithesis of freedom)
• Your willingness to relinquish control and accept whatever comes on its own terms;
• Your willingness to let go your cherished ideas about self-esteem, self-importance, and meaning;
• Your relationship to your moment-by-moment experience;
• Your willingness to turn towards both life and death, and integrate both as one experience.

You are not Robinson Crusoe here; this same process is happening for all of us. Your story may be a bit different to mine, but the process is common to us all, as are the comedies and dramas that result.

We connect with Freedom through our experience, whatever that experience is. Even if our experience is the opposite of freedom as we see it, it is that experience that will take us out of the quicksand we're stuck in. It is only through Surrender to experience, as it is, that freedom exposes itself.

I do have a final word of warning. If you don't use it, you'll lose it. Paralysis unchallenged gradually takes over. The longer you postpone the inevitable awakening, the less able you become to pull yourself out of the mire. And make no mistake about this -- it is YOUR job to save yourself. Even Christ said that!! 

The longer you leave it, the more traumatic become the invitations life sends you to move your arse. My question: How bad do things have to get before you'll give up the stone in your shoe? My tip (for what it's worth): The sooner, the better.

THE FIGHT TO BE RIGHT

Giving up the fight to be right
Doesn't make you wrong --
Just intelligent.
And free.

DISEASE AND IMMUNITY

At lower levels of conscious awareness
Our body/mind immune systems may not be operating subtly enough
To recognise the higher-frequency forces behind disease.

In many ways, our present narrow awareness of disease,
Restricted by the parameters of "normality", definition, analysis, separation, and resistance that characterise the process of looking for a cure,
May actually be feeding and empowering the causes of some disease.

It's also possible, I contend, that our immune systems are being converted
From agents of protection-from, to agents of empowerment-of the disease,
By the mind-set where the disease is considered to be what we ARE........
Our default self-talk says "I am dizzy", rather than "I have dizziness".
If that sounds absurdly pedantic to you.
I have to suggest to you that our body/mind connections
Are just that un-intelligent -- absurdly pedantic and literal.
It is my experience that, when I get a message "I am sick",
And deliberately translate that into "I have a sick feeling",
There is a subtle shift in perception in that moment:
It opens up the kind of a difference that makes healing possible.
Because the "I am" identification is so ingrained, however,
I've had to be quite persistent in correcting my ego;
But it's getting the message.

Immunity is resistance to perceived threats.
Resistance ensures persistence --
We become what we resist;
That is a ruthless rule of reality
Immunity is resistance to transformation.
(Ultimately futile, by the way,
But if you haven't got anything better to do with your day....)

If we're having trouble recognising the nature
Of whatever's ailing us at the moment,
Perhaps that's because the consciousness organising its development
Is, like us, hidden within us,
And maybe we're looking for it in levels of awareness
Where it isn't.

In case you hadn't noticed
We're not winning the battle against disease.
We have created the most amazing potions, medical gadgets and surgical techniques,
But the grooblies are always 3 or 4 jumps ahead of us.
The foolproof cure is always followed by a bigger, better fool.

We continue to fund and proliferate
Cures for individual illnesses,
While collectively we wallow
In stress-creating, dis-easeful social and collective consciousness and behaviour
That, masquerading as "progress"
Complicates and pollutes every aspect of our lives,
Adding not one whit of levity to our gross national unhappiness.

It was not "I" that put asbestos in the air.
It was not "I" that put mercury in tooth fillings.
It is not "I" that chops down rainforests and kills off wildlife,
Or chooses gas-guzzling cars over hybrids,
Or builds Lego mansions that have to be airconditioned 24/7
Instead of designing something that contributes to the environment ---

It is the "Me" that is "WE" that does all these things, and more...
The collective "I" of our personal ungoverned selfishness, greed, jealousy and competition.
Yes. Yours. And mine, too.
It is our blinkered, un-awakened, un-aware, personal self-consciousness
And our refusal to look behind the obvious
That empowers all of our misery
And lousy communal management.

It's not "Them" that are doing it to us;
When we get our head out of our arse, we find
There is no separation.
The Illusion of "Me" and "Not-Me" is killing us
50% at a time.

LAYERS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

If this blogsite had a graphics capability,
I'd have drawn the cross-section of an onion here
With 7 concentric circles.

But I don't know how to do that, so I ask you to imagine it.

Now I'm going to give each layer of this Consciousness Onion a label.
Each label, like all labels, can be used to separate and differentiate one layer from another.
But I'd like you to remember that we're on a fluid continuum --
Let the labels be generally fluid, descriptive and provocative,
Not fixed proscriptive or limiting.
I just want to cast some light on one way that humans experience the different layers of consciousness
And provoke, if you'll let me, an "A-hah!"of recognition from your own experiences.
Here are the phases of consciousness, from the outside in......................

• POSSESSIONS
• OTHER PEOPLE
• BODY
• MIND
• EMOTIONS
• SPIRIT
• SOUL

The layers rank roughly in vibrational frequency order from coarse/slow at the outer edge to fine/fast as we near the centre.

There is no intention to rank one end of the scale as "good" and the other as "bad",

Nor to imply any whiff of concepts like "better" or "worse".

Possessions

In a Possessions consciousness we are furthest from our centre. We define ourselves in terms of what we identify with (own). These include, but are not limited to material possesions, knowledge, power, control, and even symbols of achievenments and enlightenment can also be adopted by ego in this level of consciousness  as "What I am". Jealousy & competition, and beliefs in Scarcity, Lack and Loss thrive in a Possessions climate.

Other People

Our attentions are predominantly in other people's space. We allow our choices and actions to be governed by what others may or may not think and feel. We may be obsessed with our reputation and what "they" think and feel about us. We may be compulsive "helpers", depriving others of the opportunities to learn the lessons they need for their growth. At one end of the scale in this level of consciousness there are altruistic benefactors; at the other end are annoying busybodies and pathetic wallflowers desperate to be liked.

Body

The first level at which attention is focussed at all inwards and some, albeit primitive, measure of self-awareness begins.
Body image and health are usually a major preoccupation in this level of awareness. Instead of having a body, and all the variables, pleasures and challenges that go with that, we identify with our body and what's going on with it; we assume that is what we are. We allow our Self to be defined by this one aspect of our being, almost to the complete exclusion of every other area. (e.g. we say things like "I am sick" and "I'm too fat/thin...etc", rather than "I'm feeling sick", or "I'm carrying more weight than is good for my body.." This may seem a bit pedantic, but it betrays the presence of an unhealthy assumption which we identify with and BECOME. A long-term obsession with Body is unhealthy because, like all the consciousness centres except Soul/Pure Awareness, the body is deteriotating and dying. To the extent that our self-image and self esteem are tied to anything that is deteriorating or can be lost, we're up for a lot of anguish. Never mind, it makes for good drama, and it gives dieticians, makeup manufacturers, gym trainers, plastic surgeons, beauticians and fashion stylists a very healthy income.

Mind

When any being identifies with the Mind, its programmes and contents, we have a state of affairs called Ego. The same comments apply to Mind consciousness as to Body-consciousness above. In fact, it is the ego that is responsible for creating all levels of Consciousness other than Spirit and Soul. Long-term tenants of the Mind find it hard to relate to others emotionally and often become prone to diseases of the heart, stroke, diabetes, and mental dis-orders. Psycho-babble witchdoctors, self-development gurus, sales trainers and PR pushers would go broke in 30 seconds if an asteroid crashed into this layer.

Emotions

We sure as hell know when someone else is living in their emotions -- they gush all over the place and are so "un-reasonable". We also have a pretty good idea when we're wallowing in emotion ourselves, and we use mind-consciousness (reason) to justify squatting there. We don't just have the emotions in this consciousness, we BECOME them. Long-term squatters may develop psychiatric and medical conditions. Drug-pushers (legal and illegal) owe their fabulous fortunes to this level of being. New-age farts and snake-oil roadies find this realm a fertile playground.

Spirit

The beginning point of Consciousness -- Awareness with limitations. At this level we are aware of another side to our being beside our human nature. In reverse order, from the Soul outwards, this is the point at which duality began so that the being could become self-aware. From this point outward, frequencies are lowered so that the Being can access experiences that are not available to it at this high-frequency level. God-botherers start around here somewhere, but soon descend, like the rest of us, into lower levels, robed in their holy righteousness.

Soul

Pure Awareness. Thought, untainted by thoughts -- faster even than the speed of light. The deathless Absolute. The creator and unsubjective, unconcerned witnesser of all lower levels of consciousness. This is the core of what we are, but we cannot know it from this space. Because there is no duality here, there is no way of looking in a mirror. There is nothing to look inwards and see. From this we came, to have all the experiences available in each of the other levels of consciousness, and to this we will return with that knowing intact.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

A consciousness or way-of-being that is centred on (e.g.) one's possessions will provoke perceptions, create hierarchies of values, ethics and importance, and attract people and events that differ at least in quality (if not content) from those that arise in a consciousness emanating from elsewhere on the scale (e.g. Spirit). Behaviour that is acceptable, and maybe even lauded at one level of consciousness, may come in for heavy disapproval at another level. Things that are seen at one level, will be seen differently at another level, or may not be seen at all.

Perceptions and events that happen in one level of consciousness do not happen in isolation: Everything interacts, and cause-effects are felt right across the spectrum, including and especially the level of Soul/Pure Awareness/Space-Time. Everything that is and happens affects the cosmic Awareness, and Awareness affects everything that is and happens. Experiences are felt in ways that are pertinent to wherever on the spectrum our attention is at the time. And collective experience and personal experience co-exist concurrently in, through and around us; there is no separation in space or time. It is this phenomenon that ensures that individual experience is, at one and the same time, part of the collective experience. Which means, if you want to change the world, change your experience of it. Your experience is contagious.

The bottom line is -- whatever's going on -- pay attention.

As far as god is concerned, (regardless of what priests and gurus will tell you) there's no layer that is preferable to any other. There's no place you should be. My mother chose to strive (and I mean "strive") to live as much as she could in the realms of Spirit and Soul. I, on the other hand, have chosen to spread myself  and explore as far and as often as possible, as widely as I can over the whole area. Sure, my discriminating ego has limiting preferences; I let them go as much as I can. My point is that, while there are remarkable differences, and changes in the balance of advantages and disadvantages as we slide along the scale, one level is no "better" than any other. Find what works for you, and be prepared to move along when where you are no longer serves your purpose.

Speaking of god, by the way -- no matter how far off-centre I've gone, I've found god there, indiminished. So far, and I have been to hell and back, I have not found any place where god, the undiscriminating witnesser, is not ever-present.

I'm reassured by that as I head off into the unknown of this next moment.......

THE RIGHT AGE

Old enough to know better,
And young enough to go ahead anyway.

ENERGY ABSOLUTE

It wasn't until after Einstein discovered the principle of Relativity,
That we could even begin to appreciate that,
As we approach the speed of light,
Mass and energy begin to exchange qualities.
The boundaries differentiating them begin to blur.

Concepts of time, space, matter, energy and light
Are all different types of a larger/faster dynamic --
Pure thought.
They are all "thought-in-motion",
And they are inextricably inter-related;
Not one of these concepts has any meaning
Independently of the others.

Some kinds of consciousness (e.g. labelled negative, material, victim...)
Create experiences mainly at the slower-vibrating velocity end of the scale.
Another, higher-vibrating kind of consciousness (e.g. labelled positive, spiritual, creative, quantum....) is required
If we want to effectively deal with events
In which our whole lexicon of ideas, beliefs and expectations about space, time, reality and unreality, morality, ethics, social consciousness,
Get turned inside-out.
The energies needed to deal creatively with such upheavals
Belong to another dimension,
Than the one we're in when our world shifts and shakes.
And our minds are not going to cross those boundaries --
Not ahead of us, anyway.
Pioneering is not on the Mind's job description.
For breakthrough
We need to get out of mind
And open up to intuition and inspiration.

If we're not happy where we are,
We have to welcome and allow any energies
That disturb our existing stability
And shuck us out of our shell.
This is where our mind goes NUTS! --
"Stability = Good: Instability = Bad"!!! has been so deeply and unquestioningly ingrained in our consciousness,
We never question whether we've been looking at the truth,
Or a mirror-reversal of it.........

"Instability = Good; Stability = OK for R & R, but not forever"

Look, we all started this conscious life with a traumatic, chaotic upheaval (birth).
But we got so scared by that, we missed the fact that life post partem has been much fuller, freer, more exciting, and still packs a lot more possibility.
A shakeup of the existing condition
And a radical shift of location to a bigger womb (that didn't feel like "womb")
Were the price of utterly new possibility --
And still are.
It's the spice of the adventure of being alive --
Enjoy it!
And if you can't enjoy it,
Enjoy not-enjoying it.
At the very least, you know you're alive!

There has to be some kind of breakdown
Before a break-through.
Whether it's subtle or cataclysmic
Depends on how quickly you get the message.

Any forces that dis-ease our equilibrium
Are a good start to the process,
But we do have to venture further.
Without an accompanying complete Shift of being,
We're just jerking around on the spot,
Having a bad time, for no good reason,
And getting the same old quality of results
That go with the level of consciousness we're stuck in.

How do we know when a Shift has happened?
Well, an "A-hah!" is a good sign;
A moment when we change our mind about something,
A dawning that comes from seeing something differently.
It may be the moment when we move from feeling victimised by our dis-eases
To allowing our self to be re-defined by what's going on.
That switch of perspective is, firstly and usually
An act of grace,
Then a daily personal, deliberate choice,
At least until it replaces the old way of seeing and reacting.

Higher, more inclusive energy states
Manifest better quality results.
Our dis-eases, relieved of resistance,
Lose their toxicity.
We can see more options,
And we're better able to make choices
In harmony with the whole.

When we're immersed in conflict with dis-ease
We're usually unaware of engaging in a parallel fight
With subtler, more powerful levels of consciousness
Because we've become deadened to their existence
And inured to the resulting chronic en-heavyment.
But that is precisely what's happening --
We're at war with our own evolutionary destiny.
We're resisting Paradise
Because we have a mistaken idea
About what the road to the Emerald City should look like .

It is the role of the awakened healer
To provide by his/her simple presence
The contrast of inner silence, insight and clarity
To others who've forgotten that it exists.
It is also the healer's role
To lead those who seek
To a place where they are either invited or challenged
To Shift to a place where they can see where they're stuck
And realise that their deepest longings are ready and available.
But, like the old adage about leading a horse to water,
The seeker has to actually create that shift:
No-one can do that for him.
Every individual is 100% accountable for his situation
And 100% responsible for his own growth.

Transformation is like dying
Out of an old way of being
Into a radically new consciousness.
If we can make that transition
Before the dis-eases of being human usher us to physical death,
We get to enjoy the prize -- enlightenment while we're still conscious.
Heaven on earth is just as possible
As the hell most of us put ourselves through
In the search for it.

Transforming can be a bit of a tug-o'-war......
At one end, low-level coarser consciousness is using us to perpetuate itself.
At the same time, a higher awareness in us
Is seeking to extend its evolvement into a finer level of our being --
A level where subtler and more sensitive energies arise
To interplay with the cruder personal dramas, comedies, exaggerations and contractions already familiar to us.

Existence is continually expanding, and balancing itself, cosmically and personally.
But we resist the move to expand
Because we fear it.
At the first twinges of discomfiture, out of sheer habit,
We go looking for the Causes and Cures....
Find out what's wrong,
Find out how it should work,
And fix it....
Isn't that how we do it?

This is such a narrow sliver of  truth!
It completely overlooks the possibility
That discomfiture may be a symptom of something going right!
It overlooks the existence in human experience
Of entertainments like hurdles, unexpected detours, delays, blind alleys, hidden surprises, red herrings,
Sudden insights, quantum leaps, linear evolution, genius, miracles and flashes of inspiration....
Higher-frequency phenomena without causes
And no need of cures,
Or explanations.
Such "miracles" are nature's invitation
To get out of our heads more often
And live longer in wonder
And enjoy the adventure we came for.

Free yourself:
Open up.
Relax.
Seek not just to live,
But to live absolutely
Over the fullest spectrum of experience you can allow.
Then let go some more,
And more,
And more.....

GROUP ENERGY

[A note for group leaders, counsellors and therapists]


The energy available to a couple
Is exponentially greater than that available to a solitary individual,
And far less than the energy available to a group.

The kind of energy available to a group is shaped
By what the group interaction is consecrated to.
(e.g. A group huddling together for survival taps into denser levels consciousness than a group gathering to contemplate an aspect of their spirituality.)
PS. When a group gathers to contemplate spirituality in order to survive (mollify their egos), they get "religion".

Focusing on particular "problems"
May temporarily lift the patient out of his/her experience of the problem,
But what is empowering the problem is still there,
And the therapist will find the problem awakened in him, too.
[Whatever we teach, we have to learn, and learn again.]
Schizophrenic and autistic patients, for example, can disturb the therapist
More than the therapist can balance and quieten the patient:
Disturbed children working at a higher vibrational energy level
Can radiate a stronger induction effect on the therapist
Than the therapist can do for them.
{You have to know your stuff;
And knowing means more than merely remembering what you read
In order to pass your exams].

The best thing the system can do for therapists (and their patients)
Is to balance their ongoing training
With specific training to broaden the frequency range of their operating energy levels
By taking them into a group dynamic
That is consecrated and orchestrated to accelerate their personal transformation.

I have found several qualities in counselors and therapists who can actually heal --

• They're all directly awakened to higher energies. They don't just know about them, they use them as a guiding beacon and a safety line, and they go there for in-tuition, sustenance and renewal.
• They're all comfortable with their lower energies, and they're not afraid to go anywhere down there to work with each patient wherever he/she is emotionally and spiritually.
• They have an ever-maturing aura of unconditionality. They're non-judgmental.
• They have an amazing moment-by-moment capacity to rebalance, aided by their expanding awareness of the whole picture.
• They have the capacity to release, at the first sign, any tendency to contract or repress.

EMPOWERING "STUFF"

Here's a koan --

How do I engage with this problem/disease

Without empowering it?

How do I empower Whole-ing (Healing)?

CONSCIOUS SHIELDING

Have you chosen transformation for your self?
If you haven't yet made that commitment,
You may like to skip this.
If you have, I have a heads-up for you
On something you're going to come up against,
A naturally occurring phenomenon which is endemic to human beings of every race and creed --
The  Anti-Transformation Shield.

The human mind is manic about stability --
The stability of itself and of its one-sided, contradictory ideas.
That is the way mind is designed.
This is neither good nor bad,
It's just the way it is.
Human minds abhor anyone or anything that rocks the boat
(Including yourself!)
Ego Mind, unlike the cosmic mind, does not, and will never  know Balance.....
The ability to find and maintain equilibrium in a chaotic environment.
The cosmic mind is chaos, and finds balance;
The human mind hates chaos, and looks for stability.
To get balance, you have to get "out of your mind".

Transformation and evolution are a direct affront to stability;
They not only rock the boat,
They sometimes capsize it!
Un-conscious ego/mind is terrified.

Ego/Mind has a natural, unconscious shielding process against anything it considers to be a threat to itself,
Including  the threat of transformation.
So what do we do about that?
Outright opposition to our mind and its mechanisms
Will not work;
You can't defeat your mind with your mind.
How do we circumvent the mind?
Consider this....
Try using your mind as an ally
By creating a conscious shield around your transforming.

As we explore deeper into awareness,
Some kind of conscious protective nurturing process is important,
Especially during the early stages of each phase.
For example, we have to be aware of the possibility
Of our own misplaced motivations  for growth,
Such as an underlying greed for peace,
Or for new and more sensational or extraordinary experiences,
Or - my favourite - impatience with the rate of our development.
Such motivations for transformation are going to get us into trouble.
To cope with them we can first develop a basic, no-nonsense self-honesty
(In fact, we won't get far without it.)
To modulate the speed of one's unfolding we can use tools like nutritional diet, sex, exercise, meditation and activities that allow us to share energy with others.
These are all examples of physical conscious shielding.

The more balanced or resourceful we become,
The more accommodating we become of shifts and drifts.
But there are still certain levels of energy
That we cannot tolerate for too long
Before we start to shut down.
I'm not talking just about pain and illness here;
There's only so much pleasure we can take, too,
Before it starts to become uncomfortable.
(How long can you stand being tickled before you do your block?)

So what do we do about it?
Well, walling off consciousness by surrounding yourself (or another) with white light
Is a primitive level of spiritual shielding that often works.
More mature still, when you can manage it, is to become transparent to surging energy
Out of a deep and imperturbable sense of acceptance of what's happening.
That takes practice. Don't get discouraged if you don't succeed at first.
Start by letting small, manageable bits of the energy in question pass through you at first.
You're learning new skills -- be patient with yourself.

With practice, both forms of shielding --
Throwing a white-light cover, and becoming transparent --
Offer us an experience of growing mastery (not control)
Over our experience.

Just to wonder about shielding, without paranoia, is important.
When stuff arises,
Instead of opposing it,
Think about consciously reframing it;
Meditate -- feel your way into a wider context to contain what's happening
And FEEL some truthful answers to yourself in response to the following questions..........

• What part of my being is essentially pure and unconcerned at the moment? [The answers you're looking for will not be the ones heard in words, but those sensed in silence. If nothing comes immediately, don't be discouraged. Stay with the question, and stay aware. Your "answers" will come]
• Who is the final arbiter of what I'm experiencing now?
• What part of me am I consecrating my life to right now? (The aggrieved victim, or the master observer?)
• What else am I consecrating my life to? (In reality, not ideally)
• Where does my sense of god and the universe finally rest in my awareness?
• Where am I now in relation to that?
• Is this loving, or wrathful?

Different facets within our being evolve at different rates,

And at different rates to others.

Each facet has its own level of tolerance to rising levels of intensity;

This is one reason why a rush to transformation can become counter-productive 

If pushed to hard or too fast.

• For what level of my being is this shield provided?
• Is there any part of me now that is not new, not vulnerable, and not developing?
• Is there any sense in where I'm at now of good or bad? Right or wrong? OK or not OK?

Conscious shielding is only meant to be temporary, for as long as it's needed to nurture the newness into a life of its own, and not a moment longer. Shielding will be needed for as long as we're still feeling an interplay of "good" and "bad" forces. The second we realise that duality no longer dangles us, the shields can be dropped.

There is a higher plane of Wholeness and Is-ness

Where no experience is felt as either good or bad,

Better or worse, bearable or unbearable.

Don't go looking for that --

The search will push it away.

Simply know that it is there;

And it will come to you

When you are ripe.

In the meantime, wherever you are, ask yourself......

• Can I meet my Self in this place?

ON THE MOVE TOWARDS WHOLENESS

Perturbation is the incubator of Transformation.
That may be good news (if perturbation is what you've got)
Or bad news (if perturbation is what you're desperate to avoid).

We are shielded naturally from perturbation
By our own un-consciousness
And by any ideas, beliefs, attitudes and expectations about reality
That invite us to operate in a narrower, lower dimension.

Once we begin, though, to open up to less conditional and more aware states
And higher-frequency levels of wholeness,
This unconscious protective matrix, intrinsic to ego/mind,
Is automatically and intentionally weakened.
The resulting expansion experience is turning out to be
An acceleration  of the death/rebirth process.

There are odd times when I find this transition quite disturbing.
Some mornings feel a bit like "Groundhog Day" --
Being thrust backwards to a recurring Beginning
That develops into a something new and more vulnerable than yesterday.
It's no surprise at this stage
That my ego is coming in for a massive shakeup and a bit of a bruising,
But all egos teeter and bruise rather easily, don't they?
(Especially the seemingly tougher ones!)
My mind, of course, wants to counter-revolt.
It throws up all its old shields,
But now there's a whiff of desperation in the air;
It senses the game is up.
There's a keen awareness going on concurrently
That this is something quite unlike any place I've ever been before.
There's a softer, more powerful imperative calling me
To work more intuitively and creatively
Because there are no valid precedents now to guide (or limit) me.
I'm making it up as I go along.

In this state I'm becoming very aware
Where previously hidden shields and boundaries were,
And I'm finding ways to master
The shifts of subtler energies and dimensions.

I mention the uncomfortable, unfamiliar side of what's going on
Because I don't want you to be under any illusion that transformation is a doddle,
And be put off by the reality of it.
There's a reason that Transformation is the road less travelled......
The discomforts that accompany an invitation to transform
Convince most people that there's something "wrong",
And the automatic protective shields and defences are activated
To make these "bad" feelings go away.
Unless you override the tick-tock defence mechanics,
Yet another opportunity will go begging.

If you get fazed by the initially unpleasant deterrents to transformation
And continue to avoid or block moves to open up,
You'll be turning your back on your full inheritance
Of being human.
Touching, allowing and moving beyond the tick-tock
Empowers us.
When we find ourselves inexplicably forced
To re-contemplate areas we thought were resolved,
Or to enter levels we may have heard about,
But have no idea about until we actually experience them,
We are rewarded by accelerating maturity,
A deeper and more genuine level of compassion for others
And the insight of an experience few people live long enough afterward to share around.
(I say that because most people evade, avoid and resist the inevitable
Until the process of dying at last forces them,
Very, very reluctantly, to go through it.)

Here are two things worth remembering
As you develop your psychic skills and appreciate a larger reality --

1. In order to perceive something, you have to enter the level of reality in which that thing was created, and in which it exists. You will develop a facility for flicking between levels of awareness.
2. You will see not only what you want to see, but you will also see things you may NOT want to see. It is neccessary to look at all you see with the same sense of balance.

Which leads me to the biggie that lies behind the old adage -- Be careful what you ask for -- you might get more than you bargained for.........

In the process of creating what you want

You may also be creating what you don't want,

And/or what you might not even have imagined.

"I feel I may be creating the very thing I'm most afraid of."

That's the stopper!
This, I think, lies at the heart of our dread of transformation --
The recognition that what we most desire lies inside what we're most afraid of,

And the fearful realisation that we have to relinquish all control,

Including control over the outcome.

It is true in my experience that
As consciousness expands
Those areas I fear most or formerly rejected outright
Seem at first to grow larger and more real.
And I'm blowed if I know why!
Is there some cosmic joker who delights
In making the journey of evolution
Look and feel like some fairground horror-ride?
Why is it that every step out of the fall from grace
Looks worse from underneath than the step you're on?
I don't know.
But standing in a pool of "Why's" is a sure way to stay stuck.
("Why's" ain't wise.)
That's the way the game goes;
Get on with it.
[I spent most of my first 45 years
Taking the road more-frequented
And finished up getting just as lost as those around me.
I headed up the slippery slopes of consciousness
With all my conditional ideas of right or wrong, better or worse, real or not-real....
And got to be right, miserable and back where I started, over and over again]
.
Nowadays when faced with options, I do the opposite;
I discard the comfort stuff
And choose the less obvious, the less-popular, the less comfortable-looking way through.
It seems to be working;
I'm not the same person I was 10 years ago,
And that's only happened since I gave up trying to change!

I've found an absolute, unconditional centre of awareness
From which to view everything that's happening.
Unfortunately, I don't live here yet,
But even the occasional visit is enough
To let me get my bearings
Before I get creatively lost again.

Here's one way to break the inevitable deadlocks......
Resolve any separating emotions,
By making them OK.
Make (e.g.) fear OK
By making it OK to have both the fear, and the thing that is feared.
Make anger OK
By making it OK to have both the anger and that which you're angry about.
Make sadness OK
By making it OK to have the sadness, and the object of your grief......
Get it?

Opening up your heart,
Giving a deep "Yes" to everything,
And exploring the transforming process for all its worth
Will deliver you by far the richest, most involving, all-embracing, challenging and rewarding experiences you will ever have in your life.
You will, at last,
Live fully
While you're still alive enough to enjoy it.

CLEARING UP MY STUFF

My commitment, at this time of my life,

Is to have done with dying

Before I die,

So that I can live

Before I die.

But sometimes it feels like I'm nowhere near there.

Each and every one of us has hyper-soft spots --
Areas of immaturity
Where we protectively recoil, whether consciously or not,
From some threatening aspect of living.
We hive off into our caves to avoid
The very experiences we've been presented with
For our growth.

The never-ending challenge
Of identifying, facing and engaging with these periods of contraction
Is an essential part
Of exploring higher levels of awareness.
Transformation is an open-air activity;
It will never happen in hiding.

Don't hear "should" in what I'm saying.
If you insist, you can spend the rest of your life
With one foot on the Escape Hatch.
There's no demand from existence (that I'm aware of)
That we have to be cured from anything,
Or that our stuff has to be cleaned up once and for all time --
(I'm beginning to wonder if that's actually at all possible.)
But with one foot firmly planted in the grave,
We aren't going to get far.
If we're going to venture to higher levels of awakening
We have to get out of the womb,
And be re-born,
As uncomfortable as that might be.
We absolutely have to acknowledge and own ALL that we already are,
Incorporate everything new that shows up in our face,
And allow all of it to be -- yes --
"In me, as it is on earth, so it is in heaven.".
This is one face of what Healing is --
Committing matrimony between "Not-Me" and "Me".

To attempt to assist others with their healing
Without incorporating one's own healing (whole-ing) as an overarching priority in the pocess
Is foolhardy, doomed to failure and, frankly,
The height of arrogant conceit.
(Physician, heal thyself.)

I've found it comforting to know
That when stuff comes up for each of us
It is because sufficient love and energy has been generated
To allow this stuff to come forward.
If it's in your face, it is time.
And I'm often somewhat awed at how life waits with the lessons
Until you have the resources (inner and outer) to handle them.
I've found that we can trust that absolutely.
When the student is ready,
The circumstances and the teachers appear.

No Strain

When "stuff" is activated, and does not resolve easily,
Slow down.
Don't push it --
(Shit at your own speed, or you'll get haemorrhoids).
Whenever you detect a dynamic of recoil,
Don't try to push deeper until that resistance is resolved.
Get help if you need it.

I'm going through multiple physical and emotional challenges at the moment
Following major surgery,
A new, fairly heavy medication to assist my heart,
And a major lifestyle change.
I'm now under considerable constraint from my body /mind
To curb my natural and habitual impatience with myself
And what I see to be a slow rate of "progress",
And be much kinder to myself than hitherto.
My system has now become so sensitive
That I can feel every contraction and resistance focusing me narrowly on the immediate crisis.
I stress out very quickly
And temporarily lose some peripheral vision of the wider reality
And my sense of that detached, unconditional Witness Point.
I lose sight of that and get embroiled in my stuff.

I need time to mature further,
And the internal forbearance to allow however long that takes
To be irrelevant.

I also need patience with well-meaning acquaintances
Who see only the downside discomforts of what I'm going through.
Who ignore my pleas that "I'm OK -- really! I want to do this!"
And try to interfere
And "fix" me.
(These are, of course, people who won't face their own stuff.)

Our "stuff", when engaged, becomes life-changing.
It becomes our "Get-Out-of-Gaol" card.
Nothing in my life now is remotely the same as it was 3 months ago.
Thank God!!
And I'm spinning out --
Literally and figuratively.
And, as uncomfortable and even distressing as it may feel at times,
I'm deeply happy about that!!
This place, this edge of chaos
Is where transformation happens.
This nibbling and gnawing away at all the old realities
Is transformation -- happening.
Anything less is just (small) change.

Let me challenge you --
If you are not entering and engaging openly
With a sense of chaos and un-doing,
You're just changing skins.
And if you find yourself wanting to save someone
Who is willingly having an experience you wouldn't be seen dead in --
Mind your own business.

So this is healing,
But healing doesn't feel like I thought it would:
I feel, at the same time, so ill and so alive!!
This heightened presence in this here/now
And the fact that I have, at times, to consciously create my next moment
(Otherwise it isn't going to happen)
Is the essential experience of resolving "stuff".
In the privacy of my bunker I've lately been doing a fair amount of expressing, catharting, denying and repressing,
All of which effectively quarantine and preserve (i.e. avoid transmuting) these unwanted feelings that I've been avoiding all my life.
Every bout of resistance costs me a simoultaneous loss of connection with Being-ness.

But underneath these lapses, I remain committed to go through whatever comes up,
At whatever level it comes up.
I treat the lapses as part of the lesson.
My Spirituality is the only constant that I have, or need, to hang on to
Because that goes with me, hand-in-hand, wherever I go in consciousness.
But I've now discovered that the old spiritual practices and disciplines
Now get in the way of spirit-being.
"Doing" spirituality has in the past been a holy haven,
A look-good way of shielding myself
From genuine engagement with fully living the human life
And shielding me from the rawness of transformation.

So -- spirituality is a state of awareness-being, not of doing.
Spirituality it is not a cure-all for anything,
It is what we are, whether ill or well, connected or separated, happy or pissed off.
Outside of the death of the body/mind,
There is no cure for being human;
Nor any need for it.
There's nothing to be fixed -- just lived as totally as we can.

OK.
Let's see where this leads...............

BELIEFS -- STIMULATING OR STUNTING?

Beliefs -- infrastructure of the mind.

Beliefs act as a kind of scaffolding
To join the dots of experiences that we've had.
They're designed to be temporary bridges
Over the vast area of experiences we have not yet had;
They are gap-fillers over what we do not yet know.
They're very handy for making some quick sense of a new situation,
So that we can find our feet as quickly as possible
And get on with the game of exploring and discovering.

A problem arises, however, when these make-do structures become permanent.
Because they cover over what we could get to know
With what we don't know,
They obscure possibility and opportunity for growth.
Another problem with beliefs is that by far the largest number of them aren't even ours;
They were handed to us, complete with umpteenth-hand dots, as "gospel truth"
By people we respected and loved
Before we even had for ourselves the experiences they were supposed to interconnect.
These beliefs connect experiences we only think we've had.
And the experiences we think we've had
Have been forged by the adopted belief,
Because all beliefs are self-proving.

Whatever beliefs we adopt,
We get to be right about them.
They become "our" truth,
And, while they are in place, we get to experience life
As if they are "the " truth.


I don't yet know whether it's possible for a human being
To get to a place of permanently living without beliefs,
And I  admit I don't even really want to.
Because they have the power to create experience,
Beliefs are fun to play with,
As long as you know their limitations,
And don't stand on them for longer than they're creative and useful to you.

But some beliefs become rusted-on
And weigh heavily on our freedom to be,
Precluding any curious exploration of alternatives,
And defying all attempts to dismantle them.
Listen.
Now and then, tune in to your own self-talk,
And become aware of some of the negative beliefs you have about yourself, others, and life in general.
Pick one -- any one.
Then stand in the question "Is this empowering me, or crippling me? Am I being my own best friend by allowing "I" to talk to me like this??"
An honest person is ruthless in examining
Whether he/she is coming from a true knowing
Or a belief.

And as Socrates said --
"An honest man is always a child......"
Curious and non-judgmental.


I prefer beliefs that I can play with,
That sit lightly,
That provoke and allow the exploration
Of new, apparently contradictory and paradoxical possibilities,
And that are easily re-formed or dismantled
When they reach their "use-by" date.

When I realise I'm positioned on a belief, I ask myself
"Is this belief still creative, or has it become a limitation?
Does it still bring challenge and the possibility of growth?

Does it stimulate me or stunt me?"

If it no longer serves you --
Chuck it.

PARDONING & FORGIVING (for those in mourning)

In the act of pardoning
There is still an attachment
To the past
And a withhold
In the present.

Forgiveness is a let-go;
No attachment,
No unfinished business.
The slate is clean.

When pardon has been granted
There is still some forgiving yet to happen.
When all is forgiven
There remains nothing to pardon.

Death is the ultimate let-go --
Absolute. Total.
You take nothing with you through that gateway,
Nothing.
There isn't room.......

Know this ----
When our loved ones die
All is forgiven
(As far as they are concerned)
All that remains
Is for us to forgive our self.

GETTING TO KNOW YOURSELF

There are things that we know about ourselves,
And there are things that we know that we don't know.

But what about the things about ourself
That we don't know that we know,
And, worse still, those that we don't know that we don't know?
These are the moles that sabotage us,
Working away in the background to undo our best and noblest intentions.

Wanna know what they are?

Start listening to your critical inner dialogue about other people.
You think you're talking about them?
How could you? -- you do not know them
Anywhere near as accurately or insightfully
As you think you do.

So who is your onboard judge/critic banging on about?
You, that's who.

Whatever you see in another
Is a reflection of an aspect of yourself.

You're looking into a mirror,
And as you are with those reflections,
So you are with your self.

You could decide to be grateful for the in-sights
Or you could continue to pin them elsewhere
And wonder why the world around you continues to be populated
By such undesirables.

TWO MANTRAS

#.1.

I know....

I am.....

I own.....

It is......

#.2.

Be.....

Allow.....

And move beyond......

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

You say you want to experience unconditional love?
There is a thought that we ought to love unconditionally:
That is, in itself, conditional.
Unconditional love
Allows everything,
Including conditionality.
Unconditional Love is a universal "Yes",
Without any conditions,
Without any conditioning.
Are you sure you can embrace something that large?
Not with your mind, you won't.

Unconditional love Is What-Is .....
The space that holds and sustains us
Through every experience.

Everything we have ever experienced
Has happened because we wanted that experience.
But sometimes we get caught up in a negative emotion,
Judge our experience
And shut down on it.
But that's our doing -- not God's

Whatever the experience is,
Unconditional Love says "Go for it;
That's OK,
And you're OK for wanting it."

If we could get that,
Guilt would be gone
Along with the rest of the dinosaurs.

Does that scare you?
What would the world be like without guilt --
Without some "Thou shalt not's"?
How would you know?
Have you ever lived in a world without guilt?
Without "No's"?
I have, many times, fleetingly.
What does it feel like....?
Free.
Happy.
Responsible.
Appropriate.
In love...........

And then I return to live
In this conditional world,
I take up the challenge to "let it be".

Who was it who said "How come you're trying to remove a splinter from your neighbour's eye
While you've got this bloody great plank stuck up your arse"?
I know that Unconditional Love begins and ends
With me.
I start with continually relaxing around
The condition that I think ought to be unconditional.

THE HOLOGRAPHIC NATURE OF REALITY

A hologram is created by the interaction
Of two beams of laser light --
A pure carrier beam,
And an imperfect beam containing the information.
The signal beam intersects and "interferes" with the carrier beam,
And the interaction of the two creates an illusion
Of a three-dimensional image that looks real,
And isn't.

As with a hologram,
The energy waves of our personal experience
Collide and inter-fere
With the focused, pure, cohesive energy
That enlivens, permeates and supports all of existence.

It is the interfering of the "I/Me" ego and it's divisive boundary-sentry activities
That holds us backward
From experiencing the unifying energy
Of "We".

When our energy loses awareness of its core life-source,
The resulting image/experience becomes chaotic, disjointed and disconnected --
A derangement that seems disturbingly real,
Painful,
And intensely personal.

So what's the solution to reconnecting with the core energy?
Simple.
Remember that it exists
Here and now.
Yes, it's that easy.
For as often as you forget,
Remember.

As we re-refine our awareness
And access new levels of being,
We automatically become increasingly aware
Of the presence of the pure carrier energy
That animates and unifies all our experiencing.
The dramas and comedies becomes less and less personal,
And more awarefully universal.

The "I" becomes "We".

We are the Whole
Of that which we thought we were either were only a part,
Or not at all.

We are the Whole of it.....
We are......
We......
Are.

Aahhh.......

The day we die
The interference will fade away,
Leaving pure, Is-ful Awareness.