PROMISES, PROMISES

Promises are like mermaids --They look and sound enticing,
But.................
(A bit fishy).

I become a bit wary when someone says to me "I promise......".
I get and appreciate the good intentions of the promiser,
And I also know that the persona who makes the promise
Is not alone in the body and eyes of the person I'm talking to.
Other personas are lurking in there who will, if it suits them,
Disown any responsibility for the deal.
Should something go awry, the persona who made the promise
Won't be home when I call back.
He will have been replaced by someone else.

I'm always wary, too, of someone's need to volunteer a promise,
And just as wary of anyone's need to demand one.
If you know so little about the human mind,
And you're naive enough to demand a promise and trust it,
You deserve whatever happens next.

If the person making the promise does not know his/her own duality,
I gracefully receive promises in the spirit in which they're given,
And privately take them with a pinch of salt:
I will wait, and simply watch what happens.

How do we get to know how and where someone is with their duality?
Listen
To how they talk, and what they say, about others.

INTENTION


It's a truism that

Our intention always shows up, sooner or later.

Very few people, however, are ruthlessly self-honest
About their real Intent.
Having just automatically promised to do something,
Very few people examine what they've just said
And question whether it will actually happen -- no excuses.
Even fewer, when they discover there's insufficient internal support for delivering on their promise,
Will turn around and say to the other,
"I'm sorry about this. But I've just had a closer look,
And what I just promised you is not my intention".
You just couldn't bear to look that bad!
You prefer to not-deliver,
And rehearse excuses for that.
You may convince another with your reasons-why,
But the bottom line is -- you didn't deliver;
Your own soul knows your truth
And is damaged by your lack of integrity.
When you don't deliver on a commitment
You hurt your self.
This isn't about punishment --
This is the Law of Cause and Effect,
There is no Cause without a commensurate Effect;
There is no Effect without a Cause,
And this law cannot be manipulated.
When you breach your integrity,
There are inescapable consequences
Inherent in the act itself.

People only promise something
When there's a serious, unexamined doubt lurking somewhere around
That, without vowing it, they might not deliver.

Why so?
What is it about promises that feels "iffy"?
Well, every promise generates a canopy of Damoclean threats --
Dire social repercussions that will befall you if you break your word.....
The internal blackmail underlying every promise isn't likely to generate peace and joy!
But it's more fundamental than that.......

We are not whole;
We are dual
And we live in a world of duality.
That's one of the ground-rules of human-being.
There are a million and more reasons for the urge to make a promise,
Ranging from altruistic and sincere, all the way along the scale to manipulative and deceptive.
None of the reasons for promising, however, arise from a ground being of Integrity.
All promises are made by one part of our ego,
At least in part with the internal intention to coerce or shame the rest of our ego into compliance.
No-one likes being coerced, least of all, our ego.
When an aspect of ego that did not have the microphone at the time of the vow
Gets onto the throne,
Watch out for sabotage.

The opposite of a promise,
Is a simple, quietly assured, whole-of-being commitment.
The aware person knows his duality,
Consults the rest of his inner management,
And negotiates support from all sides.
Any commitment or agreement that this person makes
He makes first with himself,
And then shares with the other person/people.
His agreements and commitments have integrity
Because they come from a wholeness of agreed purpose.

Anyone who is unaware of the duality of humans-being
Can, and will, be caught unawares, puzzled and hurt,
Trusting promises from people and friends he/she only half-knows.
Conveniently ignoring his own uncomfortable little hypocrisies,
The aggrieved party feels victimised by treachery;
It never occurs to him that his own blind ignorance of human nature may have had something to do with it.

INTEGRITY


An integral person is someone who has it all comfortably together --
Not just the best-looking bits,
But the whole box and dice.
Integrity is that state of knowing the complex nature of all our dualities,
Being aware of all the areas and places where, given sufficient motivation, we will shift positions
And go to whatever lengths to justify that switcheroo to ourself.
Integrity also includes how we synthesise these fragmentations into a complete, functional person
That others can reliably relate with.
In a state of Integrity
Nothing is denied or rejected.
Everything is creatively integrated.

Only someone of integrity --
That is, someone who knows and accepts the exact nature his own inconsistencies
And that of his friends and acquaintances,
Can be trusted.
A person of integrity knows where he is not to be trusted
And either does not go there,
Or makes special arrangements in that area.
If he stuffs up, he takes responsibility for that
And makes amends.

An unaware person, conversely,
Strives to "not-be" what he/she doesn't like,
And projects pet "hates" out onto others.
He unconsciously finds "friends" who'll go along with his lies as long as he goes along with theirs,
And then wonders why he/she gets shafted.

An aware person gets to know his friends' soft spots.
He doesn't think any the less of them for their human inconsistencies
Nor does he try to fix them, unless asked:
Thanks to his own duality, he can empathise;
He knows how it feels to live with contradictions.
He appropriately treads aware-fully in the grey areas.
And is not taken by surprise.

Duality is one of the greatest gifts of being human,
And it's also one of it's most monstrous downers;
It can enable insight, empathy, just as equally as opposition and hypocrisy.

Inconsistency is natural.
Hypocrisy is born when we are trying, or pretending to fulfill something
That doesn't have our own whole-hearted support.
All because we want to look good,
To ourself and to others.
We will make sincere promises in one context,
But without consulting the rest of the cabinet in our cranium.
And that's where the problem arises.
The unconsulted cabinet members will, in certain different circumstances,
Feel trapped by these impositions,
And get either openly indignant, resentful, or even hostile,
With you, with others, and even with the person to whom you made the promise.
Or your "underdogs" will become secretly subversive.
Then watch the internal gymnastics!
Your promises will be undermined by circumstances and persons unknown.
You may suffer mysterious accidents or illnesses,
Or contortions of logical spin to justify your dishonesty,
That excuse you from taking responsibility for not carrying out your commitments.
The two most common avoiders are --
"I'm sorry, I forgot" and
"I was only joking."
Make no mistake,
Most avoidances are real!
(The accidents happen. The symptoms are real. We really do forget.)
But underneath that is another voice whispering to your heart -
(I wasn't there when you made that promise! You never consulted me!)
Even if all of you gets together and decides to do the "right thing",
It's still a falsehood,
And you wonder, after years of living "honourably",
Why you come up feeling empty?
Wake up!
You've been living several part-lives,
Flip-flopping back and forth,
With no part complete or satisfied.
And it has destroyed your very soul.

Promises are made, not from a ground being, and as an expression of, who we genuinely are,
But from a need to reinforce either what we like to think we are,
Or what we'd like others to think we are
At that time.
It's part of the front we put up --
Trust me, I'm a nice person.


Any urge to promise
Could be a warning to you,
That there's another part of you involved here
That needs to be heard first
Before making a commitment you may well regret.
And any promise made to you,
By your ego or by anyone else,
Could well go straight to the "Maybe" basket,
Just in case.
See what actually happens.
Someone very wise came across a fig tree one day.
It was a gorgeous, fulsome, showy, leafy tree,
But totally bereft of figs.
Turning to those who were with him, he commented dryly,
"You can pick 'em by their fruit."

ATTENTION & LOVE

It has been said that -

Love is the quality of our attention.


Love and Attention are very closely related --
To love and be loved is a basic human need;
It's natural.

That need gets perverted, however,
When the being denies love and attention to itself,
Demanding instead that all its needs be met by others.
The "give" side of "give-and-take" dries up,
Because no-one can give away what they don't have.
Flick-passing works for football, but not for love.
Love must be received and experienced
Before it can be paid forward.
Love comes through you....

If you regard yourself as unworthy of love and attention,
You will feel unloved,
Even 'though the the whole world might be paying attention to you.
There is never enough to satiate the hunger of self-imposed impoverishment.
And you -- unloved orphan -- will get to be right --
If you insist that you are "unlovable",
It will not be long before the rest of existence supports and agrees with you.
Now that's love!

When we suppress or deny our need for self-acceptance,
Our need for love subverts itself
Into a symbolic addiction to solicitousness from others;
We'll do anything to be the centre of attention,
Even if that attention is abusive.

If you want love and quality attention
(And who, in their right mind, does not?)
Give it --
Not as a negotiation in order to get it back,
But give it freely
For the inherent joy of giving
To yourself and others
As an expression of your natural being.

Whatever you put out
Will come back to you --
Maybe not directly from the place you sowed it,
But come back to you it will,
Many times blessed,
For that is the Law of Sowing and Reaping.

FALSE NEEDS

Before we can be healed,
One thing needs to be "got" deeply --
You and I are both neurotic,
Deeply split.
Our thinking and our feeling
Have separated.
Natural feeling has been suppressed,
In favour of think-feeling
(A false feeling, where we think that we're feeling).

We hide behind a false face
Because we're afraid to enter the raw, genuine emotion,
Which we've judged as unbearable, undeserved, or unacceptable.

This split from reality lands us in a very neurotic state.
After a while of faking it,
We no longer know who we are or what we want,
Our real, legitimate, authentic needs have been labelled "Baggage",
Suppressed,
And hidden in the Left-Luggage cloakroom.

In their place we have created Symbolic Needs --
Like comfort-food, sex, internal border-protection, sensation, status, recognition, and approval.
Because these needs are false,
We go looking for them in some very unhealthy ways and places,
And they never satisfy.
They may temporarily gratify, perhaps,
An "upper" that quickly evaporates
As the false need escalates into an addiction.
We are never nourished by False Needs;
There is no fulfillment.

LOVE

Love expresses itself
As a rock-solid comfort and self-acceptance
That has no need to prove itself.

The love of which I speak
Is not an emotion,
But a space in which all emotions are possible.
It is a way of being
In which all ways of being are possible.
It is not something that is done,
But something that is done through "Me".

Love accepts everything.
That doesn't make you a doormat
Or give you licence to push or be a pushover  --
In self-care at lower levels of awareness,
"You" needs to have its own boundaries;
Give your beloved the gift of being clear about them.
But be prepared, too, to be flexible enough
To dissolve boundaries that limit your growth.
And don't get bent out of shape
That others don't have the same rule book as you.
Move on.

One reason we may find it difficult to experience love,
Is that we have limited, self-defeating rules governing what "love" ought to look like,
And too-narrow criteria for deservability --
Our own and the "other's".

The more intimately you come into contact with your own being
The simpler things look
And the clearer they become.
Easier?
That I cannot promise you.
Yet.
But I live in hope.........

GOD IS BUSY

This email was sent to me today -- I love it!

A British soldier was attending some college courses between assignments.  He had completed two missions in Afghanistan .  One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist, and a member of the ACLU.


One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, 'GOD if you are real then I want you to knock me off this platform.  I'll give you exactly 15 min.  The lecture room fell silent..  You could hear a pin drop.  Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, 'Here I am GOD, I'm still waiting.'


It got down to the last couple of minutes when the soldier got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and decked him; knocking him off the platform.  The professor was out cold.  The soldier went back to his seat and sat there, silently.


The other students were shocked and stunned, and sat there looking on in silence.  The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the soldier and asked, 'What in the world is the matter with you?  'Why did you do that?'

The soldier calmly replied, 'GOD was too busy today, protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an idiot... So HE sent me.'


I have found....
God often sends the most unlikely messengers and means
To deliver wake-up calls......

INNOCENCE

Do you want to know what God looks like?
You don't have to climb Mt. Sinai, looking for a burning bush......
Relax, instead, into the shameless, unjudgmental gaze of a child
And experience for yourself
Ego-free "I-know-sense".

Innocence is simplicity.

We replaced our Innocence
With stubborn-arsed Attitude
When we sold out on having our own experience - -
Un-adult-erated.
We got separated from it
When we discovered things we had to be right about.
Once we take a position on anything,
We say "Goodbye" to innocence.
Riding pillion with that right-ness
Are Loss and Regret
That we are no longer child-like.

Innocence is stifled, generation after generation,
By those who love us
And want us to grow up,
In whatever ways that are meaningful for them.
The price of losing Innocence is too high
And not necessary.
While we may accumulate years and knowledge,
There is no true Maturity
Without Innocence.

The good news is that Innocence continues to exist,
At the core of all life,
Almost unnoticed,
Completely unrecognised,
Yet yearned for.
Watch the faces on a bus,
When a wide-eyed baby comes on board.

Innocence means living in unobstructed contact
With your complete self --
Higher and lower.

Fear may be characterised
As an inability to be innocent in the matter.
In Innocence, there is no fear.
(An opposite of Courage is Innocence. Both may produce similar fear-less action, but for very different reasons, and with very different consequences. Courage is the product of fear: Innocence is the natural state of being we were born with, before fear.)

In a discussion one time about the movie "Being There",

I was asked "How come Chance walked across the water?"

The answer that popped was "It never occurred to him that he couldn't."

In innocence, the human mind and heart simply assume
An infinite array of possibilities.
There is no question about it.
The Christian Church, for one, found the idea of Innocence so threatening
Its bishops concocted the Doctrine of Original Sin,
One of the most corrosive, evil ideas ever foisted on an innocent people.
It happened.
But dare to look, for yourself, into the eyes of a child
And tell me if you can see "original sin".

This consequently rare condition of Innocence,

Of being unscarred by pain and suffering

Allows a direct knowing of life itself,

Just as it really is --

Undistorted.

This is true in-tuition,

Connecting you to life itself --

Not stuck out on  a limb,

Trapped by someone else's idea about it.

Denial is where problems arise;

Intuition is the place where all problems are dis-solved.

At times, however,
I have found returning to child-likeness difficult.
My mind is highly reluctant to let me let go
Of something it thinks it needs
For its survival.
Layer after layer,
My mind resists surrendering its stuff.......
I have to be very patient.

When you're ready,
Give up being right about your resentments.
Say "Yes" to your Innocence:
Reclaim it.
The more you come into contact with your child-like being
The simpler things are,
Resistance is dropped,
And the easier living becomes.

PAST & FUTURE PRESENT

Some of us live in the past (resentment)
And occasionally visit the future
To predict yet more doom and gloom.
Others of us live in the future (hope)
And occasionally visit the past for justification.
The Present is like one of those little towns
We speed through in transit:
If we blink, we miss it.

Truth is, of course,
Whether we're stuck with our heads in the Past or the Future,
We're doing it Now -- in the Present
And we miss it.

STEPS TO HAPPINESS

PRESCRIPTION

1. Whenever symptoms arise, contemplate the diverging characteristics of Happiness and Fun. Reach into your self and get to know the difference in experience.
2. Get that Happiness Exists. It's all around you. Happiness doesn't have to be created or reached, just tapped into. It is closer to you than the end of your nose.
3. Accept what is -- for now. Get happy with what you've got. [NB Do not attempt to skip this step, and do not proceed until you're happy]
4. Be very careful what you ask for -- you might get it.
5. Let go your withholds. Breathe! Create the intellectual and emotional space for what you want. Release every demand or limiting expectation of how it should show up. 
6. If at first you don't get what you say you want, don't despair: there may be some preparatory work to be done. Accept the fact that you have a limited view. Be willing to accept something that will later turn out to be better. Trust the wider intelligence at work that knows you, knows what you need, and that's willing to conspire with you. Be flexible about your timetables, expand your availability and transparency to the process, and pour on your love anyway.
7. Let go. Breathe more deeply. 
8. Resume growing. In order for growth to happen, something has to be stretched. Allow the unallowable. Accept the unacceptable. Forgive the unforgivable.

SOME SIGNS & SYMPTOMS OF HAPPINESS

• A tendency to engage spontaneously with what is, rather than react to fears of what might-be, uncoloured by the anxieties, guilts and resentments that attach themselves to past experience.
• A marked aura of freedom emanating from an inner knowing that the past is past, the present is present, the future hasn't happened yet, and the three are actually unconnected. [You can go on letting your mind connect them until hell freezes over, but that doesn't change the fact that they have nothing to do with each other] Actually, the past and the future don't even exist, but I don't want to stress you out too much today. But think how much happier you could be without a past to feel guilty about or a future to worry over.
• An unmistakable propensity to enjoy each moment for what it is.
• A willing loss of reliance on the assumption that we can accurately interpret the motives of others.
• A loss of interest in judging the actions of other people.
• A loss of interest in conflict as a way of getting what we want.
• A loss of the ability to worry.
• Frequent and sometimes overwhelming bouts of appreciation and gratitude.
• Contented feelings of connectedness and delight with others, one's self and with nature.
• Frequent bouts of smiling, and growing incidences of loving laughter.
• An increased susceptibility to the love extended by others, as well as a growing urge to pay it forward.

SPACE

I want to make a comment about nothing........
The encounters of this moment
Fill the world.
Space, if you need it,
Has to be created.

That means, among other things, letting something go.

When space does appear,
Don't be too anxious
To fill it up with something else.

Wait........
Watch......
See what life delivers.......

REALITY & TRUTH

What is the difference between Reality and Truth?
It's a bit like the difference between
"Elm" and "Tree"....
All elms are trees,
But not all trees are elms --
There are other types of tree.
Similarly, every reality is a truth,
But not the whole truth,
And some truths are not everyone's reality --
Not until that truth is experienced personally.

THE Truth
Is the sum total of all realities.

No single person knows the Whole Truth.
But it is available.
It is known,
But we do not know all that we know.
How do we access what we don't know that we know?
First,  let go of everything we think we know
And surrender to Not-Knowing.
In that state of permanent innocence
Truth reveals itself
As and when it is needed.
Experience it,
And own your truth
For your self.

ADAPT-ABILITY

Adaptability is natural.
There is no freedom without it.
It is a built-in facility of all sentient beings,
Essential to the survival and evolution of all species.
Creatures that don't adapt to circumstances
Die......
That's the way it is.

Nature usually organises for the un-adaptable creatures to be taken out
Before they procreate.
The un-adaptable strain is gone within a generation.
Humans get around that,
Which is why we get stuck, as a species,
With children who have inherited the inflexible limitations of their parents.
No matter, life has a way of prompting us to do something about our inflexibilities --
It's called Crisis.

-----------------------------

No matter what the age in history
Or country of birth,
Or the social or economic circumstances into which they're born,
Children have always, and probably will always
Adapt themselves into whatever they're born into.
Our parents managed it; so did we;
We're here, aren't we?
I don't think we have to worry about that.
No question about it.
Children explore, play, experiment
And construct realities and personalities for themselves
From where they are.
They're not fettered by any internal pre-judgments or expectations
Of how it should be.
This is what they showed up in --
This is the way it is.
They don't question it -- yet.

Limiters are acquired later.
Ideas, opinions, beliefs, concepts, values, goals, rules and expectations
Are developed, adopted, formed, and otherwise put in place,
Hardening the arteries.

If we are to remain alive and engaged with life,
Flexibility of emotion, intellect and spirit has to be fostered and attended to
Otherwise it will be lost
And rigor mortis will set in at all levels of being.
We've all met zombies who are upright and dead --
A helluva way to choose to live your life,
And not one that I'd recommend,
But some people insist upon it????

Periodic health-audits of our limitations are called for
To keep ahead of necessary repairs and adjustments.
When these checkups are neglected,
The lives we've constructed may come up for major repairs, renovations and make-overs.
Long-term neglect leads to dysfunctions that eventually call for total demolition and re-build.
Fine.
It happens every day,
So commonly, in fact, that there are even names for it --
"Mid-Life Crisis" being one.

We only become afraid to undertake such radical makeovers
If we think that what we've built
Is what we are!
(Shit! Don't touch that -- that's what I am!)
Unfortunately, most of us fall into that trap.

But if what I've built is what I am, then --
"Who was the architect/builder/owner?"
Me, of course. Who else?
But the builder and the house cannot be one and the same.
The builder is not that-which-has-been built.
You are the dweller, not the dwelling.
No more are you your mind, your body or your personality;
To think that you are is an insanity.
You are that which designed them ,constructed them, and which dwells therein.

This realisation can be immensely freeing for you;
Anything you have constructed, you are entitled to re-construct.
You can demolish and rebuild what you live in
Without fear of damage to Who-You-Really Are.

Let's go back to you before you started building what you've now got.....
Who was born?
"Who was before I was?"
"I-am" was.....
I am an idea whose time had come.
Who was before you were?
You were.
Always.
You are an idea whose time has come.

FREEDOM -- DEPENDENCE AND INDEPENDENCE

We have trapped ourselves into a cruel joke:
As very young toddlers, our minds put it together that
"I need to be dependent (on my parents) to survive."
Well, we didn't have a choice about that;
It was something we had to surrender to.
Later, however, we began to rebel against that --
"I need to be independent (of my parents) to survive."
Our mind, however, has to be right about ALL of its ideas, beliefs, opinions and conclusions,
That's just how minds are.
It could not ditch the old idea in favour of the new.
In an gobsmacking piece of elastic logic,
The old conclusion and the new got stapled together --
"I need to be dependent in order to be independent (and vice versa)"
This is just one aspect of the bewildering love/hate duality of our relationships with our parents;
Logical,
And absurd.
You can begin to see the stress and suffering inherent in that trap!
I need to be dependent and independent,
And I have no idea where, when, or for how long,
And I have no idea how to tell you this.

Considering that our relationship with our parents is THE fundamental relationship
That influences all the other relationships we've ever had,
It begins to throw some light on the problems we have with relatives, life partners and authority figures.

This kind of thinking is not confined to our relationships.
Some other examples of how we get caught in the Law of Reverse Effect are:-

• I need to feel grief and hurt to get validation and honour
• I need to suppress myself to be noticed
• I have to push in to opt out
• I make myself feel stressed to get relief.
• I need to feel (angry, jealous, upset, afraid....) to get peace of mind
• I need to hold back, stop myself or trap myself in order to be free.

These are just starters,
To get you thinking about your own arsenal
Of absurd joy-stoppers.

It's fairly easy to find out your own particular quirks:
Take a few quiet moment on your own
And go back to a recent time when you were upset.
Disregarding the story,
Identify two emotions you felt at the time (e.g. hurt and anger).
Then, in one short sentence, bottom-line what you wanted the end result to be.
Then do what your mind has already done --
Put the two together.
[e.g.  I've just had a blue with my partner. I'm feeling hurt and angry. All I wanted was to be understood.
So, in this case, I make myself feel hurt and angry in order to be understood.]

Look at what you've got.
This is the absurd logic of the Mind in action.
Caught on tape.
Is this operating principle in front of you a recipe for happiness?
No?
Good.
The seeing is the movement.
Just be aware.
Catch yourself,
Get to know yourself,
And have a laugh about it.

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

A truly independent person

(Which I confess I am not)

Simply lets others be

(Both inside and outside him/her self)

Resistance to the way they are is recognised

As arising from a need to dominate and be right

And is dropped.

Resisting and judging only demonstrate our freedom

To imprison and destroy ourselves.

When we give away our ability to let things and people be

We lose our ability to be responsible for what-is.

When we cannot be responsible for things the way they are,

We give ourselves no space to manouevre;

When we have no space,

We cannot create,

We can only react.

There's no independence in being a robot.

It is only in the act of Creating

That we begin to experience true Independence.

The old way of doing things has been

To resist, dominate. control, be right, and make wrong

In order to be free and create.

How's that working for you?

Me either.

Patterns of resistance, domination, coercion, and the need to be right

Cut us off from our self and from otherness.

They erode our ability to let things be

And our ability to be responsible.

They I-solate us from space, freedom, and the ability to create.

If we want a way out of a mess that we're in (and I do)

It seems that the thinking that got us here

Probably needs to be completely reversed

If we're to experience Independence and Freedom.

Independence is not the absence of anything, including dependence:

I suspect Independence is the state of being 

That lightly embraces everything.

Let whatever is, be

And rejoice that it is so.

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

Life has no apparent purpose to which we can relate
Until we create one (or more) for our self
And venture forth to meet it,
Inwardly and outwardly.

In a context of unconditional love
Life will take on whatever purpose(s) we give it.
Choose carefully,
Because any purpose you decree for your life
Has absolute creative power
Over what happens with you from then onward.
Become aware.
Meditate into your life.
Pay attention to it.
Watch with interest where it takes you.
Be available to all that is happening
And open to what more might be possible,
Inside and out.
Without feeling the need to justify anything,
Create what you want,
And add to that as often as you want.
At any given time stand by all that you've created,
Go responsible for it, and stand on it.
(My stand, for example,  is -- There is always another way...")
When you put yourself on the line
Life comes to meet you,
Bearing all manner of gifts.

What is your Purpose of Living?

• To successfully survive, until you die?
• To prepare for another life?
• Spiritual discovery?
• To resist and suffer?
• To advance civilisation?
• Self-gratification?
• Power and control?
• What....?

The answers that matter will not come from your head,

But will show forth in the evidence at sunset

Of how you've spent today,

And the quality of interaction you've had during the course of this day

With the rest of existence.
Let the fruit you bear be the evidence
To the purpose of your being.

Let this be your daily evensong.

Purpose,

Whether consciously formed or not,

Directs our life.

A consciously created Purpose,

Enlightens our choices and decisions.

Purpose generates movement in the direction we want to go

And delivers increasing satisfaction.

Without commitment to conscious chosing, however,

We're blown around willy-nilly

By the flaky winds of cross-purposes,

Most of which don't even belong to us.

I am not about to suggest what your Purpose of Life may be,

But I offer you a few possibilities to get you started

On your own exploration ---

• Life is for the purpose of Conscious Experience, and learning Mastery (the opposite of "control")
• Life emerges from the realm of absolute, unconditional love so that we might experience the opposite of all that, and so come to know all that we are.
• Life gives us the hitherto unavailable opportunity for both the divine and the secular in us to discover, experience and express loving and being loved.

On your deathbed, I promise you,

All of your preoccupations with career, education, image, money, security, power, and people you don't like........

Will evaporate. Totally. Gone.

Alongside getting on with the business of letting-go,

The only issue of importance to you will be --

Who did I love? (and you'll get some surprises)

Who loved me? (more surprises)

Do they know how much I love them?

Did I express my love adequately, and honour it appropriately?

Given that you are still alive and reading this,

I can safely say that you, like me, have not yet achieved the Purpose of Life.

We're not done yet.

We're still caught up in intricacies;

We have not yet mastered the simple purity

Of loving and being loved.

This life is the arena where we get all the opportunities

And all the experiences we need.

We were placed here

Without an Instruction Manual.

The directions back home have been fragmented, translated into code,

And hidden along the way.

We have no memory of where we came from,

Only occasional and fragmented flashbacks of past expeditions.

We're like an amnesiac,

Cast away on an island isolated in time and space

Along with a bunch of other amnesiacs

Who, despite their protestations to the contrary,

Also have no idea who they are, where they are, or why they're here.

(That includes me, by the way. Don't follow me -- I'm lost, too.)

The implied Instruction for Life is - 

"Make it up as you go along."

Now, if we can really get a handle on this as possibly "The Way It Is",

Without rebelling, or being dominated by an "I-know-better" ego,

Then there's a good chance we'll begin to experience our own Innocence.

We may stop straining,
And let go of everything we think we know

And start to relax into the condition of Knowing Nothing,

The only state from which Creating is possible

(Creating is the art of bringing something forth from Nothing. Something from something is just change.)

From Innocence we can create Purpose --

For life and for our self --

A personal Purpose that will organise everything we think, feel, say and do,
And everything that we experience being done to us,

And that will connect with the Universal Purpose of All Life

I suspect that there is no escaping the Universal Purpose of life.

It was given to us by the creative source before our life in this body began.
But what is it?
Why is there Life at all?

Every moment of the day and night we are reporting back

On how we're doing,
Without really knowing "compared to what"?

It's possible that those who have experienced past lives
May well have realised they missed the boat
And returned to "have another go".

Who knows? It really doesn't matter one way or the other.

But I get that the general idea is to make the most 

Out of the chance to live the life you've got.

Begin by realising as clearly and as often as you can

The Love that is manifest in Living,

Everywhere you look,

However that love is expressed in your world.

The Purpose of Life?
For myself I've made it --
To liberate others who are willing
And myself who is very willing,
From whatever is holding us back.
That's what I've created for me.....

Now,
What is the Universal Purpose of All life?
That would be handy to know,
Because you and I are both a part of that, too.

I can't be sure -- the jury is still out;

I'm still here, so there must be more for me to get yet,

Or maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree entirely.

But I have found something

That I've tried and tested in some pretty extreme circumstances

And, so far, it's still working for me.

If this tweaks your interest,

Feel free to try it for yourself ---

For the whole of Existence,
The purpose of life

Is Life itself.

OLD HABITS

Habits don't get broken.

We either remain a victim of a habit,
Or we choose a more effective behaviour.
Our choosing.
Our deciding.

The old habit remains.
How do we live with it?
Let it be.
Be aware,
And choose instead
Whatever delivers what you want.

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.